


Scientific Methods: Double Blind

by radishface



Series: Scientific Methods [3]
Category: K-pop, NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-19 22:21:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13133415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radishface/pseuds/radishface
Summary: “Perfect love casts out fear.”When a midnight confrontation finally forces Jonghyun to face his true feelings, will he finally acknowledge them — or run away for good? Set during Produce 101, Season 2.Complete.





	1. The Blame

Jonghyun is about to tell you off.

 

You let him drag you up to the top floor of the stairwell. He drags you both up three flights of stairs as if you’re on the run from the law. His fingers dig into your wrists. You stop just before the door to the roof. A cold wind whines through the crack at the bottom.

 

“Are you trying to get expelled,” he hisses at you. He lets go of your hand and you lean back against the wall. Lee Daehwi was so warm, so lithe. You’re cold now, in a day old t-shirt that smells like this afternoon’s dance practice and ratty gym shorts.

 

Jonghyun looks haunted under the pallid light of the stairwell. Dark circles under his eyes like he hasn’t slept in days, his skin an eerie jaundiced shade.

 

Welcome to the set of Produce 101, where you’re on display twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. In this place where inside and outside is all mixed up, you often forget why you’ve come here in the first place.

 

Actually, before this you were ready to call it quits and stick it out with Pledis as a producer. But Minhyun had reasoned with you and Jonghyun and Minki and Aaron had made their tearful appeals and here you are now, turned on by twinks like Lee Daehwi, on the cusp of losing your sanity, getting yelled at by Jonghyun for not keeping your shit together for the team.

 

“It’s none of your business,” you say, even though you know you’re wrong.

 

Your leader looks, for the first time ever, like he might punch you. It makes you suddenly calm, like you’re looking at yourself through a telescope from another planet. “This isn’t some kind of vacation from reality,” Jonghyun starts, and you steel yourself for the oncoming lecture. “How could you forget. We’re here to save the group. We’re not here to ruin ourselves by, by—” Jonghyun turns around and slams his hands on the guardrails. The sound echoes up and down the stairwell, a gong-like, echoing hollow. “We’re not here to fuck around.”

 

You want to laugh. Jonghyun doesn’t curse. That’s not him. But you don’t laugh. Your lick your lips. If he wants a piece of you, here, here’s a piece.

 

“Have you ever thought that maybe we failed—because _we_ didn’t know what we were doing?  _Maybe_  we were so good at following the fucking instructions and waiting our turn that _maybe_  we never figured anything out for ourselves. Like what life is.”

 

You’ve wondered what life would be like if things went fairly for you. If you all, as a group, weren’t so fucking nice all the time. If instead of rolling over on blind faith to “make it work” with half-assed attempts to establish a fanbase in Japan and China, if you’d actually stuck up for your own creative vision and demanded better of your managers and company leadership. But Jonghyun follows the rules and everyone follows Jonghyun so your attempts to make things better were only met with embarrassment and frenzied whispers to calm down and just trust everyone and just have faith in Jonghyun, okay?

 

Your hands were on Lee Daehwi’s waist and you were pulling him into you as he licked hungrily at your lips. He wanted you and you wanted him. It was because he was looking at you the way you never thought anyone would ever look at you in a hundred years. Like you were someone. Like someone worth bending down on two knees to murmur a prayer to.

 

You laugh when you realize that it’s the same way that Jonghyun has looked at Minhyun for the last six years. You tell him so.

 

The blood leaves Jonghyun’s face. “Shut up.”

 

A thrill of satisfaction shivers down your spine. You’ve wanted to tell him this forever, and now you finally have, and he’s in no place to fight back because you’re right and _you’re right._ Jonghyun has been looking at Minhyun with tenderness and hope and desire and it’s obvious to everyone except the two of them. Maybe if Jonghyun had done something about the way he felt, it would have made him lead like a real man.

 

“Shut the fuck up.” Jonghyun hisses again, pushing you. You don’t even fight it, laughing at Jonghyun’s curse, sliding to the floor, because you know you’re right about him, having known him for so long and seen everything. Now you’ve gotten him really riled up and it’s because you’re right.

 

Jonghyun has been riding your ass for the last six years so you can all be just as repressed as he is. You’re a bunch of idiots taking directions from a coward, was it any wonder that you’ve barely had any success? And this guy still wants you to try. To still have hope. To still give it a shot. In the end, you don’t know who will be right and who will be wrong, but at least you’re right right now.

 

Your words echo in the stairwell and you realize you’ve said it all out loud. Across you, Jonghyun squeezes his eyes shut.

 

“What,” you bark. “Gonna tell me off? Go on, then. Kang Dongho is a washed up idol. Worse than a creep. Nothing I haven’t already told myself a million times. And. And,” You stutter, shutting your eyes against the image of Lee Daehwi, the way his lips were swollen and his eyes were wet when you kissed him and he kissed you, “it’s not like I’m serious about this thing. Daehwi was the one who wanted it to happen. He started it—”

 

“Stop it,” Jonghyun says. “That makes it even worse.”

 

You know that you’ve been running away from Lee Daehwi and what he really wants from you. You don’t have time to think about it. So you keep running away. And that makes you a stranger to yourself.

 

But even if you’re wrong here, you’re still right about Jonghyun. Jonghyun is still running even more scared than you.

 

Jongyhyun cries too easily. It’s always been his best and worst quality. And Jonghyun is crying now. Jonghyun goes on. He tells you he’s sorry. That he’s sorry for holding you back. That he doesn’t want to do that anymore. That he wants this to be over, as much as you do. That he wants you to be happy. Even if it means a scandal. “Nu’est will always be here for you, Dongho.”

 

It’s always like this. You know what they think about you, really. _Dongho won’t follow the rules. Dongho wont keep his big mouth shut. Dongho isn’t on the same page. Dongho can be an idiot, don’t mind him_. But they love you anyway.

 

You wish they wouldn’t. If they didn’t, maybe you’d be a better person.

 

“It’s not always on you, Jonghyun.” You tell him. “Sometimes, an idiot is just an idiot.”

 

Jonghyun takes all of this—the group, performing, his work—seriously, so seriously, like it’s the last possible thing that he has in the world. But he should start to think about what might be outside this place. What else might make him happy, besides Nu’est. Because who knows what will happen after this reality elimination bullshit is over.

 

Actually, that’s what you really want to tell him. But you’re angry at him right now, and you don’t want another lecture from him and you don’t want him to start crying again. Jonghyun looks at you with bleary eyes, waiting, but you don’t want to say it to him and you don’t know how to say it to him.

 

“Get some sleep,” he says finally.

 

After a while, you get up and leave too.

 

 

 


	2. The Fawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life isn’t fair to Yoo Seonho. It’s probably not fair to anybody.

* * *

 

 

It’s not fair.

 

It’s really not fair.

 

It’s really, really, _really_ not fair.

 

Because the silence is growing long between the two of them, because Seonho was the one to call this impromptu meeting which now has them sitting on the part of the building that hasn’t yet been constructed yet, white tarp over all surfaces and sawdust everywhere, he feels somewhat obligated to explain his sulking to Lai Guanlin. Guanlin, who listens well. Guanlin, who knows his moods. Guanlin, at least, pays attention when Seonho is mad about something.

 

Guanlin, who probably had something to do with Seonho’s reassignment from the _Never_ team to the _Open Up_ team, and yet was the only one who came back into the room to fetch Seonho after he joined his new team.

 

“I’m sorry that happened,” Guanlin goes first. “I know it’s going to be tough to learn a new routine and a new song at the last minute.”

 

“I’m a fast learner these days,” Seonho says. “This chick trainee has some skills.”

 

That earns a small chuckle from Guanlin, and the mood lightens. “It’d take me a lot longer, probably.”

 

“Probably.”

 

“For the record, I didn’t want you to leave.”

 

“So did you put me at number two on your list?”

 

“I put you close to the top,” Guanlin hedges. “It was me, and then Minhyun, and then Jonghyun, and then you.”

 

Seonho had roughly that same order, but had put Guanlin third, above Jonghyun. “Traitor,” he says with some venom.

 

Guanlin shrugs helplessly. The silence has come back and stretches wide and uneasy between them.

 

“Minhyun-hyung doesn’t know I’m alive,” Seonho finally says, after kicking up a particularly squiggly dustbunny and watching it re-settle on the ground. “That bun you’re eating? It was supposed to be for him. And then the re-evaluation happened.”

 

“Why do you care so much?” Guanlin says, mouth full. Seonho glares.

 

“It’s not about whether I care or not, Lai Guanlin. It’s about common courtesy. If you give a gift to someone, they should accept it. Especially if you worked hard for it.”

 

Guanlin takes another bite of a red bean bun, looking thoughtful. “But you didn’t even make this.”

 

“Well, I didn’t eat it, did I?” The bun that Seonho had brought back for Minhyun. The bun that had been rejected. Turned down. Now trash in Lai Guanlin’s mouth.

 

“Well, I’m glad you gave it to me. Even if it was meant for hyung.”

 

It’s obvious that Guanlin is trying to make Seonho feel better, when all Seonho wants is to complain. He tells Guanlin as much.

 

“But why do you have to be upset about it?” Guanlin is genuinely confused. “Maybe hyung was full. Maybe he doesn’t like red bean buns. It doesn’t mean he didn’t appreciate it.”

 

“I saw him eating them the other day,” Seonho shoots back. “And who doesn’t like red bean buns?”

 

Guanlin shrugs. Whatever, thinks Seonho.

 

“I guess,” Guanlin admits, “that he’s nice to you sometimes.”

 

“Oh, what do you understand? Just because all you want to do is wear Gee-ban-chi doesn’t mean that there’s more to life than dressing like a hypebeast.”

 

Guanlin looks taken aback. A faint edge of flush tinges his cheeks as he processes Seonho’s words. A part of Seonho warms devilishly at the jab, at the effect he has on Guanlin. The kind of effect he still hasn’t managed to have on Minhyun, and might not in a million years.

 

Doesn’t mean he’ll stop trying.

 

“Seriously,” Seonho fires at Guanlin, raising his voice, “you don’t understand anything.”

 

Minhyun was supposed to take the bun preferred by Seonho after lunch. He was then supposed to say something like, _you are always thinking of me and that makes me so happy. I’m sorry that you’re not on our team anymore, I’ll miss you._ Something like that. That’s all it would take to make Seonho’s day. He has seen Minhyun’s face light up at the sight of food before, so it’s natural to think that Minhyun loves food, right? Everyone loves food.

 

See, Jonghyun-hyung brought Minhyun extra food one time. Seonho noticed. In the dark of the night Jonghyun had come back from the cafeteria with a little saran-wrapped package of something. A little rice cake.

 

 _I’m sorry,_ Jonghyun had said in a very low voice. Seonho could barely make it out, but that’s probably what he was saying. He was always apologizing to Minhyun-hyung for something or another. Oh, I’m sorry I’m a burden. I’m sorry I’m so useless. That kind of thing.

 

 _It’s okay,_ Minhyun had said. Then there was the sound of the saran wrap unwrapping, followed by a quiet chewing. Seonho sighed. It sounded delicious.

 

Someone cleared his throat loudly and said _Seonho, the heck are you doing in here._ Seonho had been hoping to slip into bed and cuddle with his favorite hyung since they hadn’t seen each other day, but now Jaehwan, with his voice always one throw away from hysteria, was making it totally impossible.

 

 _I’m here to visit hyung,_ he’d said, after a beat. The room burst out into laughter. Well, that’s what it felt like. It was dark in there, so Seonho couldn’t really see the others.

 

Minhyun’s voice had drifted over to him. _Seonho—it’s late. You should go back to your own room and get some sleep._

 

So it’s not fair. Minhyun will accept any old piece of leftover cake from Jonghyun but not even a fresh red bean bun from Seonho? It’s the definition in the English dictionary of “unfair.”

 

Guanlin’s laughter jolts him from his thoughts. Guanlin is looking at him with something like pity. “What are you snickering about,” Seonho growls.

 

“You’re such a dog.”

 

“Say that again,” Seonho seethes. “And translate it carefully from Chinese into Korean in that big head of yours before you say it again.”

 

“I know what I’m saying,” Guanlin says cooly. “And dogs are great. But dogs are dogs and humans are humans. And it seems like you forgot you're human.”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Thanks for the bun,” Guanlin shrugs, and stands up, brushing off the seat of his pants. Dust flies into Seonho’s eyes, making them water.

 

Scratch that. Lai Guanlin isn’t a good listener, he’s an asshole. Seonho closes his eyes and envisions the princely visage that is Hwang Minhyun’s face, and his worries slip away.

 

* * *

 

 

  
Morning brings with it a new day and renewed resolve. The birds chirping cheerily outside their dorm don't hurt matters, and Seonho wakes in a good mood, ignoring Guanlin’s ignoring him. If he gives it a few days, it’ll go back to normal. His spats with Guanlin evaporated as easily as an ice cube melting on a floor in the summer, casually immolated by the lazy swipe of a socked foot.

 

Seonho has bigger things to worry about. After _Open Up_ morning dance practice, he sidles up to Minhyun as they file out for lunch. Minhyun betrays no indication of tension, which sets Seonho’s heart fluttering.

 

“So what kind of food do you like, hyung?” Seonho throws an arm around Minhyun’s broad shoulders, a gesture of overconfidence to make up for the fact that he’s afraid to ask these kinds of questions but is somehow doing so anyway. “Please tell me so I can do better next time.”

 

“It’s, ah, not that you need to do better.” Minhyun’s face is a smile but his voice is strained. Even Seonho can tell, and his heart falls a step. “I know you saved that bun for me, Seonho. I was just full.”

 

They round the corner to the cafeteria and Seonho feels Minhyun walking a little faster. “I don’t mean to be annoying,” Seonho catches Minhyun’s arm to slow him down. “But if I am, just tell me and I’ll stop.”

 

“Don’t be like that,” Minhyun says, patting Seonho’s head. For some reason, Seonho hates it. “It’s only that it’s time for lunch, and we’re all hungry. Let’s join the others, shall we?” Jonghyun is already holding the door open for them, a quizzical look on his face.

 

It always seems to be time to join the others. To practice. To not disturb everyone. To go to sleep. Seonho lets go of Minhyun’s arm. He doesn’t have the words to voice what he’s thinking, the inertia he feels. By the time he thinks of an even halfway clever retort, Minhyun is already in the cafeteria. Seonho walks in past Jonghyun without a word.

 

When the cameras are around, his hyung is all smiles and nice words for Seonho and right now, Minhyun is all crescent-moon smiles, waving him over to the line. His hyung knows all about optics. Which makes sense, because hyung’s has been in the industry before and knows how to work the camera. It’s one of the things that Seonho admires about him. Seonho wishes that he could be more like his hyung. He wishes his hyung would just smile at him a little bit more.

 

He gets in line but the ominous thought still emerges—it’s not fair.

 

The _Open Up_ team and the _Never_ team are sitting together at the same long row of tables. There’s an open spot next to Kang Dongho at the far end of the table, and he sits down next to him.

 

“Hyung,” Seonho says, and Dongho raises an eyebrow. He’s already almost finished his lunch. Seonho has to move fast, but he can always ask during practice if he needs to. Anyways, he cuts to the chase.

 

“What’s Minhyun-hyung’s favorite food?”

 

Dongho narrows his eyes but seems to give the question some thought. “I don’t know.”

 

“You trained with him for so long and you don’t know?”

 

“I don’t remember this kind of stuff. Meat? Beef, probably.”

 

“Seems kind of airheaded, if you ask me.” Lee Daehwi’s voice floats from a few seats away and Seonho shoots him a glare hot enough to melt a glacier. Shut up, kid. I’m in the interrogator’s seat right now and I didn’t request any backup.

 

“Does he like sweet things or salty snacks?”

 

“Sweet snacks,” Dongho replies automatically, guzzling the rest of his soda. Watching Dongho’s Adam’s apple bob up and down, Seonho has zero confidence that this is the correct answer. Dongho sounds like he’s talking about himself.

 

“What kind of gift has made him the happiest?”

 

“Minhyun’s not really into gifts.”

 

“Fine. What’s made him happy?”

 

Dongho laughs, remembering something. “Jokes.”

 

“You’re not really helping me, hyung.”

 

“And what is it, exactly, that you need help with?” Dongho leans in, smiling prettily, fluttering his eyelashes. Seonho gulps.

 

“I just want to be better friends with Minhyun-hyung,” he says in a voice as cool as he can muster. “I thought maybe, being his bandmate for so long, you might be able to share some insights with me.”

 

“Hot lead for insights, that one,” Daehwi’s voice flutters over, carrying an undercurrent of condescension. And as much as Seonho doesn’t want to admit it, maybe Daehwi is right. Maybe, when it comes to matters of the heart, the voyage of discovery is for solo careerists.

 

“Try asking Jonghyun, then,” Dongho bites back, not entirely as a response to Seonho. Shaking his head, Dongho stacks his dishes neatly in his tray, putting bowl on top of plate and laying the chopsticks neatly at the side. It strikes Seonho as a deliberately conscientious movement, somehow practiced and artificial. Dongho stands up, balancing his tray on one hand. “Hurry up and finish. We’ve got work to do.”

 

Seonho frowns. Maybe all of the Nu’est hyungs are just like this. Maybe all of them feel like they have no time.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 _Open Up_ is catchier than at first warble. Seonho learns the lyrics in the span of the afternoon. The hyungs aren’t about to give him any killing lines so late in the game. It’s a bit of a relief to Seonho, who is happy to let Yongguk, Dongho, Youngmin, and Daniel steal the show. He’ll get in his one moment. As long as he makes it past the next elimination, he’ll be fine. And he’s pretty sure he’ll make the next cut, based on his current numbers. He gets to full fluency with some additional coaching from Dongho, who may not be helpful with matters of the heart, but is certainly a helpful hyung in the practice room.

 

The week comes to an end and for once, they don’t have any filming scheduled over the weekend. Seonho still has some left to learn, and Dongho promises to coach him. Plus, Minhyun isn’t going anywhere.

 

After his shower that night, Seonho is about to head back to the dorm when he smells something savory from across the hall. He follows his nose into the common room, where Yongguk is at the stove with a wok and a spatula.

 

“Yonggukkie-hyung,” he says by way of greeting, and Yongguk turns around in surprise, spatula in hand. He looks like a surprised cat, with his pointed, out-turned ears and narrowed eyes. “What are you making?”

 

“Pork and vegetable stir fry,” Yongguk says. There’s a steaming bowl of instant rice next to him, steam rising out from the top. It’s already been microwaved.

 

“Can I have some?”

 

Yongguk looks pleased, and Seonho is glad he asked. “Sure, if I have enough for two.”

 

The garlic has already been added to the oil, and Yongguk drops in the sliced pork, breaking it up with the spatula and adding salt.

 

“I think you’re supposed to salt it beforehand,” Seonho says.

 

“Oh,” Yongguk says, looking crestfallen.

 

“But I’m sure it’ll taste really great,” Seonho adds quickly.

 

Yongguk looks like a Chinese chef. Seonho isn’t just saying that because Yongguk is Chinese, but because he actually looks like a chef. He’s got a very concentrated look right now. All the ingredients are lined up nicely at the side—bell peppers, onions, soy sauce, sugar, spring onions. Seonho’s mouth waters.

 

“Where’d you learn how to cook?” He has to repeat himself over the noise of the frying.

 

“From watching my mom,” Yongguk says. “But honestly, I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

 

“So you’re just making this up?”

 

Yongguk shrugs, but Seonho is properly impressed. Maybe the way anything ever gets done is just in making it up and pretending that you know it until you actually do. Seonho stands next to Yongguk, leaning in to inhale the scent of garlic and pork in the wok. Yongguk stirs in some of the soy sauce and sugar, and the dish attains an attractive golden patina.

 

“I wish I knew how to cook,” Seonho says, more to himself than to Yongguk. “People who know how to cook always have friends around them.”

 

He looks at the ingredients, picking them up one by one to study. Green onions in a bowl, onions and bell peppers huddled together on a small plate, a bottle of some kind of oil with a yellow cap and a Chinese label. He recognizes the shape. “Sesame oil?” Seonho asks, picking it up to see if he can make out the characters.

 

“Yep, it’s a Chinese brand. Oh Seonho, be careful—”

 

Seonho’s grasp falters on the slippery bottle. It shatters against the countertop and the open flame, and Yongguk’s workspace catches fire.

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
They toss the wok and everything else that caught on fire into the sink and leave the faucet on before running outside. The fire alarm blares behind them, like trumpets announcing the entrance of royal guests. With their faces red and sweaty, their eyebrows slightly singed, and soot on their hands, it’s obvious who the arsonists are.

 

Yongguk takes most of the heat, apologizing to everyone for his recklessness. Seonho bows behind. It’s Jonghyun who finally gets them in order, initiating roll call as if they were elementary school students reporting their attendance.

 

Yongguk and Seonho debate over who will clean up, but in the end Seonho, feeling more than slightly sorry about everything that’s happened because of his butterfingers, tells Yongguk that his hair smells and his face is dirty and that the best thing that could happen for all of them is if he goes and takes his shower right now and leaves the mess to Seonho. And that’s how Jonghyun finds him, rubber gloves soaping the countertops with a ragged-looking sponge, coughing on leftover smoke.

 

He offers Seonho a face mask and slips one on himself and begins to help despite Seonho’s protests.

 

“You don’t have to help me, hyung. Seriously.” Seonho says, but he’s grateful. Jonghyun has already lifted the grates off the stove and is washing them in the sink. “It’s my fault, anyway. I distracted Yongguk and spilled the oil everywhere.”

 

Jonghyun shakes his head, not irritated but not quite kind, either. It’s late at night, after all, and they’re all tired. “Just be more careful in the future.”

 

They wash up in silence for a while, before Seonho has the courage for his next words.

 

“What kind of food does Minhyun like?”

 

“What?”

 

“I was just wondering,” Seonho says, flush coming to his ears, grateful for the face mask that hides his trembling lips, “what Minhyun likes.”

 

Jonghyun looks at him. Really looks at him. Black eyes curious. The kind light returns. “Why do you ask?”

 

“I like seeing him smile.”

 

And in Jonghyun’s eyes there is no judgement, no question about why it is that Seonho wants to make Minhyun happy. Something that says that Jonghyun understands. For that, Seonho is glad.

 

“The easiest way to make Minhyun happy,” Jonghyun’s laugh is muffled behind his own face mask, “is to keep things tidy.”

 

“Like we’re doing now,” Seonho grins, and scrubs the countertops harder.

 

“Like we’re doing now,” Jonghyun says softly.

 

Jonghyun finishes washing the grates and turns to dry them with a dishcloth before mounting them back on the stove.

 

“Actually,” he says. “There was one time where Dongho was heating up leftovers in the microwave. He never covered the top, so it made an awful mess. Some of the oil was really caked on. It took almost an hour for Minhyun to clean the whole thing. And the next week, it was a mess again thanks to you-know-who. Minhyun didn’t use the microwave much at our studio. But when he did, he was really mad. This was back in the day when Minhyun used to get angry. He and Dongho had a pretty big ‘discussion’ about it.”

 

“Who won?” Seonho is trying to picture Hwang Minhyun with a face as red and splotchy as the inside of a dirty microwave.

 

“Who do you think?” Jonghyun snorts fondly.

 

Minhyun arrives on the scene just as they’ve finished wiping the countertops and have loaded the last dish into the dishwasher. “Oh,” he says, appraising the common room kitchen like a general surveying a model landscape for battle. “You’re already done.”

 

“Is it okay, hyung?” And Seonho is aware that he sounds like a dog, like he’s groveling for scraps, but he couldn’t care less right now. Because Minhyun is smiling.

 

“Not bad,” Minhyun shakes his head. “Not bad at all.”

 

* * *

 

 

 

_Journal Question Day 132: What do you think your special skills and talents are? Have they changed since you first joined Produce 101?_

 

Yoo Seonho was popular at school for his good looks, his height, his easygoing ways, his offbeat sense of humor, his piano playing abilities. His ability to make people laugh and swoon in equal measure. Being on Produce 101 has taught him what it really means to “walk a flower path.” It was the path he’d walked on before he joined this show.

 

Thanks to Produce 101, he’s realized he’s not a good dancer. He’s not that great a singer, either. He’s learned that he mostly scrapes by on the seat of his pants and on some precocious confidence that emanates from the security of being popular and well-liked for most of his life, because his position in high school was deeply assumed. That the only reason he’s not the worst is because Hyunbin is the worst, and because he pronounced himself a chick trainee in order to lessen the oversight and pressure on himself and that the ward the label provides him won’t last him forever.

 

Somehow, these thoughts intertwine in parallel with his feelings about Minhyun, because for him, Minhyun represents much of the experience of being on the show. It’s not necessarily like what he’s felt for girls before. He wonders if it’s a platonic friendship dialed up to maximum volume—not that he knows what it even means for a friendship to be dialed up to maximum volume. Would he be happy if Minhyun were his brother, or his mother, or his father?

 

The questions lead him to the edge of insight, but abandon him at the last mile.

 

Seonho draws doodles in his journal, whirling clouds and tornadoes, stick figure homes being sucked up into the grey twisters. He thinks about Minhyun in the next room over. He wonders if Minhyun ever stays awake at night worrying over anything, or if he just falls straight asleep without a care.

 

Seonho knows that when Minhyun smiles at him, it makes him want something more than just what he usually wants. Because Minhyun, who tried so hard and did so much, who was so talented and so beautiful, who was the entire package—still wasn’t the superstar that he should be.

 

It was the definition of unfair.

 

And it scared him and made him angry. Because if even Hwang Minhyun couldn’t make it, then what chance did Yoo Seonho have at anything in life?

 

So that’s what it is. Hwang Minhyun’s sheer existence makes Yoo Seonho want to try. To be better than he is. To keep up, to run alongside, to one day be able to say, “we’re both here now, and it’s because of you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
“Catch.”

 

Like a little kid whose catcher’s mitt is too heavy for him, Lai Guanlin catches what Seonho throws at him.

 

“What’s this?”

 

“You can see it for yourself.”

 

Guanlin looks down. It’s a bun. Milky white exterior. “Red bean?”

 

“Taro, this time.”

 

“Where’d you get it?”

 

“Taehyun and Daehwi went to get some snacks,” Seonho says. “Where were you when they were divvying up the loot?”

 

Guanlin doesn’t seem to follow, so Seonho takes pity on him. “Come and walk with me.”

 

They leave through the front doors into the night. Dongho lounges on the steps, gaze faraway. He doesn’t seem to notice as they pass. The image makes Seonho feel misty and sentimental. “It’s almost over,” he says softly.

 

“The day?” Guanlin opens up the packaging of the bun. The plastic makes an incongruous crackle. Around them, cicadas buzz joyously, their cacophony the sound of one thousand buns being unwrapped from their plastic.

 

“The whole thing.”

 

They stroll past the roundabout and onto the track, which is a little bit squishy from the recent spring showers. Guanlin steps lightly, careful not to get mud on his shoes.

 

“I’m sorry,” Seonho interrupts the silence. “About what happened.”

 

“What do you mean, what happened?”

 

“All the mean stuff I said to you,” Seonho purses his lips, knowing that Guanlin can’t see him in the dark. “About you not knowing anything.”

 

“I mean,” and he hears Guanlin smack away on the bun, “I don’t. Know anything. I’m seventeen.”

 

“Well, you called me a dog. And you were right.”

 

“Seonho—”

 

“I get weird around Minhyun. I mean, I know it. I just can’t help it. I’m like, sensitive or something. It’s not like others don’t think he’s handsome. And girls scream for him all the time. So I don’t think I’m seeing anything that’s different than what everyone else sees. Maybe it’s because I’m young, but I’m more open to it, or something. Maybe Minhyun’s effect is just too powerful on a chick like me.”

 

“Hm.” Guanlin must have hit on something. Perhaps he was trying not to be taken aback.

 

“Anyway,” Seonho sighs pointedly. “We were mean to each other last week. I thought we should apologize. I don’t like being mad at you.”

 

“And I don’t like seeing you unhappy,” Guanlin mutters. Then he says something in Chinese, which Seonho doesn’t understand, but the gruff fondness in Guanlin’s voice is hard to misinterpret. He wraps his friend in a hug. _Cool,_ Guanlin says shyly, and hugs him back.

 

Seonho feels happy and sad at the same time that this could only happen under the cover of nightfall and in the absence of cameras. He lets go and tries to make out Guanlin’s face in the dark. His eyes have adjusted enough that he can see those large dark pools reflecting back at him kindly.

 

“So what are you going to do?”

 

“I think I should tell him. Like, really tell him.”

 

Guanlin looks alarmed, but level. “Are you sure that’s going to be okay?”

 

“I don’t know,” Seonho says. “But if I don’t, it somehow feels really unfair. Like I’m the only one who feels this way, and I have to carry it all on my own. Minhyun is responsible, too. He’s the one who makes me feel like this.” And Seonho feels himself getting angry again, but this time it’s tinged with fear. He swallows it back down.

 

“You’re not alone,” Guanlin says. “I’ll listen to you.”

 

“It’s okay.” Seonho reaches out, holds his arm. “I’ll be fine. I’m young, right? It’s not like Minhyun rejecting me is my worst nightmare or anything. I don’t even know what it is that I feel. He’ll probably know what to do, what’s going on with me. He probably gets these types of confessions all the time.”

 

“Okay,” Guanlin says, but he doesn’t sound so sure.

 

 _Neither am I,_ Seonho thinks, _but I should try anyway._

 

 

* * *

 


	3. The Teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go: I will guide you with my eyes._

 

 

Their bodies are weighed heavy with the day’s work. They are too tired to think of anything else except the sleep that awaits them. And it’s not just the hours of dance practice—the strain of maintaining a bright cheeriness around the cameras sucks any energy they might have had left. At the end of the day, the boys of Produce 101 trudge back to their bedrooms like dead salmon after their final upstream odyssey.

 

Well, some of them. Jaehwan and Seongwoo still have the energy to romp around. Others stay up late on their phones playing mobile games. Jonghyun wants to spend the end of his days like he did back in their company apartment. Jonghyun would be on his PC. Minhyun was usually curled up on the living room couch with a novel and a cup of tea.

 

They would go to bed early, like retirees.

 

 

* * *

 

 

It’s almost midnight. Jonghyun drags out his suitcase from under his bunk and takes out his toiletries kit. His toothbrush is bright green with a yellow ergonomic knob for the knuckle. His toothpaste tube is half-empty and squeezed neatly from the bottom. In a stain-flecked plastic ziplock bag he carries an assortment of skincare items that his sisters and Minki picked out for him.

 

He hears Jaehwan’s laugh from down the hallway and darts to the bathroom. After a day of leading others, he just wants to brush his teeth in peace. He doesn’t like it when the bathroom is crowded. The bathrooms are like subway stations at rush hour. He doesn’t like it, but he tells himself that this is what university life proper would have been like.

 

According to the official dorm rules, they are not allowed to leave their personal items in the bathroom. Every time they want to wash up, they should bring their kits and their shower gels and so on. But after the second week, some of the boys started sharing bath products and left their toothbrushes on the counters under the mirrors. At first, the production staff had sent out posted paper notices next to the mirrors. After a few weeks, the notices stopped.

 

The bathrooms are cleaned once a week by wordless ahjummas in blue t-shirts and white face masks. They move with ruthless efficiency, like undercover agents. They disappear as quickly as they appear; Jonghyun has never seen them anywhere except the bathroom. He absolutely trusts their competency, yet, underneath the smell of all that bleach and antiseptic and the lingering smell of soap is still the odor of a horde of boys in the prime of their youth: pungent, sweet, salty, and sour.

 

Ripe. _Like durians_ , Minhyun had once said _sotto voce_ while wrinkling his nose.

 

When he spits and rinses out his mouth and the sharp sting of the mint wakes him from his bleary-eyed fatigue just barely, Jonghyun notices Minhyun’s toothbrush.

 

He knows Minhyun’s toothbrush like he knows the way back home. It is a white number with soft creamy bristles that stand rank and file like spring reeds. Minhyun changes it every three months, just as the dentists recommend. As someone so strenuous about his hygienic habits, Jonghyun imagines that Minhyun would always keep something as bodily intimate as his toothbrush safely locked up in his suitcase until ready to be engaged.

 

Yet there Minhyun’s toothbrush is, on the counter and nestled innocently and cozily in a white porcelain cup. There Minhyun’s toothbrush is, exposed to the teeming sweat particles and microscopic pheromones and abstract matter of twenty some boys using the same bathroom.

 

But that is hardly the most surprising thing. For next to Minhyun’s toothbrush is a cheerful-looking companion: a canary-yellow toothbrush with worn bristles. Soft and fine bristles that look as if they were made for a baby’s mouth. Bristles that taunt their limits, splaying at their plastic edges in a Dionysian, devil-may-care halo.

 

For reasons that he doesn’t want to understand and has avoided understanding successfully for as long as he can remember, Jonghyun goes to bed in a terrible mood.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Jonghyun’s phone buzzes. In his head, a once-upon-a-time duet with Hwang Minhyun plays. Jonghyun’s hand snaps over to snooze his phone, but he can’t shut off the lilt of _Daybreak_ in his head.

 

Five in the morning. It’s still dark. His face feels so deep into the pillow he’ll need a rope to climb out of it. He allows himself the luxury of letting his eyes adjust. Across from him, Minhyun sleeps with his back turned. From the side, Minhyun’s chest rises and falls and down in a languorous slow wave. Shoulders stark through his thin t-shirt.

 

Minhyun is one of the lucky few who sleeps deep.

 

Jonghyun’s phone buzzes again. He knuckles down hard on the power button. There.

 

He showers and changes into his gear. It’s a quarter past when he reaches the cafeteria. It’s deserted but Jonghyun grabs a box of cereal from the shelves in the back and pours some into a paper cup. It’s cardboard in his mouth, then a mealy paste. He fills up another cup with hot water from the dispenser and burns his tongue as he washes it down.

 

On his way back into the _Never_ dorm, Seongwoo’s foot shoots out to the side and over the bunk railing as he twists in his sleep—Jonghyun only barely dodges what would have been a foot straight to the face. He grits his teeth and takes a few shaky breaths, heart thumping uncomfortably. He swallows past it to gently shake Guanlin awake.

 

“Get up,” Jonghyun says. “We need to practice.”

 

Guanlin stirs and sits up. He blinks one uncomprehending eye at a time at Jonghyun. The dark circles under his eyes seem tattooed in at this point. Jonghyun makes a mental note to tell the makeup artist to give Guanlin some extra concealer before their rehearsal this afternoon.

 

It is a filming day. Technically, every day is a filming day. But the days that the instructors visit and review their practice count for more. There are twice as many cameramen in each practice room. The soundproof room is open for interview segments. There are makeup artists in the hallways for touch-ups in between takes. The probability that footage from these filming days will make it into an episode are much higher.

 

Filming days set Jonghyun’s nerves ablaze. While waiting for Guanlin to come out of the shower, he tries to focus himself by watching a video of last night’s practice. But the video annoys and worries him. Guanlin needs to put in extra effort to get his footwork in shape. Hyuna would be there to review their progress and record with them in the studio next week.

 

Guanlin emerges from the bathroom with his hair wet and slicked back. He wears a black long-sleeve t-shirt and light grey sweatpants.

 

“Where’s your jersey?” Jonghyun narrows his eyes.

 

Guanlin returns to the room to fetch his jersey, and they head downstairs to the practice rooms.

 

 

* * *

 

  
At this time in the morning, Studio C is pristine. But Jonghyun knows that by the end of the day the floors will be slick with sweat and dirt and the mirrors fogged and the glass doors of the entrance matted with the stick of oily fingerprints greased from lunch. Jonghyun fires up the iPad.

 

Guanlin picks up on the choreography quickly enough. By 8am, he’s understands the general outline and moves into his position on cue. With another half hour, his footwork is in good enough shape to dance along with everyone else.

 

Guanlin tells him between breathless sips of water: _You’re a good teacher, hyung._ It makes Jonghyun’s ears go hot, and a tingle frays from the base of his skull. Sweat pouring down both their faces, Jonghyun doesn’t say _thank you_  but tells him, _do it once more, like this._

 

Jonghyun remembers how difficult it was for him to follow along when he first started. Seoul was foreign to him—the noise, the pace of life, the coy and indirect way that people communicated. But because Guanlin is from Taiwan, he has it even harder than Jonghyun ever did. So it feels especially good to watch Guanlin improve.

 

At nine o’clock, the other boys join them for morning dance practice. Surprisingly, Seongwoo looks distracted. He misses his steps and even forgets the lyrics to one whole line. Jonghyun pulls him over at the break for a brief chat. Seongwoo is leaning back against the mirror, bottle of water held slack in his hand.

 

“What’s going on?”

 

Seongwoo mumbles that he’s feeling unwell. His eyes linger on something far away. Jonghyun follows the gaze. He follows it down the room and out the door and to the other side of the window to where Hwang Minhyun is waiting his turn at the water cooler.

 

Jonghyun’s stomach twists in hunger. He shakes it off.

 

“Pay attention,” he says to Seongwoo. “And go do it again.”

 

Seongwoo does. Jonghyun parries next to him, working him through the choreography, _like this, and this,_  until there are no mistakes left.

 

Lunchtime comes and as the other boys file out, he tells Guanlin to stay behind.

 

“You’ve really improved since just this morning. So I thought that I might give you another part.”

 

Guanlin’s eyes widen. He stutters that he couldn’t. That it’s Jonghyun’s.

 

“It sounds better in your vocal tone,” Jonghyun insists. “It’ll be better for the team if you do. Trust me.”

 

Guanlin does. Jonghyun walks Guanlin through the new lines, the intonation, the enunciation, thinking—Guanlin deserves this. Deserves to shine. Deserves it more than Jonghyun does, Jonghyun who is so small and petty he gets annoyed by small things like Seongwoo almost kicking him in the face this morning, and by the way Seongwoo looks at—

 

“Let’s go to lunch,” Jonghyun cuts his thoughts short, sensing a camera somewhere.

 

He sees a familiar bowl cut bob past the stairs and out the front door on the way to the cafeteria. A camera team catches them at the base of the stairs before he can get a better look. “How was your practice?” The cameraman asks.

 

Guanlin’s eyes shine, looking directly into the camera lens. “Jonghyun is a good teacher. The best leader there could be.”

 

Jonghyun’s ears go hot again.

 

 

* * *

 

   
Today is Tuesday, so the cafeteria is serving tteokbokki for lunch. They’ve arrived late, so the other boys have cleared out most of the food. Jonghyun and Guanlin grab the remainder of the rice cakes—the tops slightly dried out from baking under the heat lamps for the last hour—and sit down at a table where a few of their _Never_ teammates are. Woojin and Youngmin are engaged in an arm wrestling match. Sungwoon, Gunhee, and Jaehwan are circled around them, yelling near-obscenities like gangsters at a cock fight.

 

Seonho sits at the end of the table with a forlorn expression on his face, looking left out. He waves at them, but there’s no verve in it.

 

“What’s up with you?” Guanlin asks. Seonho just shakes his head.

 

Jonghyun asks him if things are going all right with his new team. Seonho replies that Daniel is still a chick leader. Even though Daniel is a great dancer, he’s no teacher like Jonghyun is.

 

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Guanlin says.

 

“Sure, it’s _fine_. But it’s not the same. I miss you guys.”

 

“Oh come on, we’re all right here,” Guanlin mutters under his breath.

 

“I bet you miss Minhyun the most.” Jonghyun asks, watching Seonho carefully.

 

“I do,” says Seonho, face darkening with some unforgiving feeling. Jonghyun is momentarily caught off guard at how straightforward Seonho is. But he ventures a little further.

 

“What do you miss?”

 

Seonho rolls his eyes as if the answer is obvious. He fixes two wide eyes on Jonghyun and in a breathless voice, pleading like a girl in prayer: “Surely hyung knows. Surely you of all people know. You’ve worked with him for so long. You know what makes him special.”

 

“Where is Minhyun, anyway?” Guanlin says between smacking mouthfuls of rice cakes.

 

“Seongwoo hyung took off with him. Needed a _favor_.”

 

Jonghyun’s tteokboki has suddenly transformed from lunch into a greasy red lump.

 

“You must be starving,” Jonghyun says to Seonho, changing the subject. “Why don’t you take the rest of mine?” When Seonho looks skeptical, Jonghyun smiles his most winning smile. “I ate a lot this morning.”

 

Seonho protests, but looks at the greasy red lump with a gleam in his eye. “You’ve had a hard day, Seonho,” Jonghyun says. “You need to take care of yourself so you can be there for your new team. I know Minhyun would want you to eat. To keep up your strength.”

 

So Seonho eats. As if every bite is the best bite he’s ever had. Jonghyun watches on until he cleans the plate. Watching him eat, the tingle in Jonghyun’s head reaches a hum.

 

 

* * *

 

  
Seongwoo and Minhyun return to the practice room with their faces red from the chill and out of breath from running. Jonghyun has already begun practice without them. They find their positions mid-song and it’s as if they were never late.

 

“You’re late,” Jonghyun snaps anyway, when the song ends. He must sound stupid, because everyone giggles instead of looking scared. A secret smile passes from Seongwoo to Minhyun and back, conveyed by the bridge of some new intimacy.

 

“We’re truly truly truly sorry,” Seongwoo says sincerely, which just makes it worse. Everyone, _everyone,_ laughs at this.

 

Jonghyun’s stomach—

 

Fuck it.

 

“Hey hey hey hey hey,” Jonghyun‘s voice snarls louder on every _hey_  and he barks at them to get into formation. Because _we’re going to do it once more. Like this._

 

_Again._

 

_Again._

 

 _Again_.

 

By the time the break rolls around, the trainees are collapsed on the studio floor, flopping around like the spoils of a fisherman’s catch. “Take five,” Jonghyun spits out. His head tingles as he’s greeted with moans of pain.

 

He goes to fill up his water bottle with water from the cooler. His skull feels tight and sharp and his teeth buzz as if they are filled with blood. He is acutely aware that Minhyun is standing behind him in line, as patiently as ever waiting his turn, unfussed, unfazed, unmarked by everything that happens around him, to him, for him, because of him—

 

His water bottle overflows.

 

“Jonghyunnie—” Minhyun steps forward.

 

“Stupid,” Jonghyun hisses at himself, wrenching the bottle away. His hands are shaking. It slips from his hand and spills all over the floor.

 

“Let me get a towel,” Minhyun steps away, and too many times today Kim Jonghyun has seen Minhyun’s back to him, too many times—

 

“Suddenly so helpful,” Jonghyun snaps instead, because he is an idiot and this is the only way he has allowed himself to be, apparently.

 

“What?”

 

Jonghyun feels angry and petulant like a child and any common sense has completely fled him at this point but he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care. “You wouldn’t know, would you. You don’t look. You don’t look and you don’t notice and you don’t care.”

 

Minhyun’s face registers disbelief, then hurt, then nothing. He’s staring past Jonghyun, into empty space, but staring with such intensity that Jonghyun thinks he’s trying to read someone’s mind.

 

Then Minhyun bows.

 

Jonghyun spins around. There is Kahi, a smile hovering on her lips.

 

“Kahi-sunbaenim,” they both murmur, bowing ninety degrees.

 

“Oh, stop it,” she says dryly, striding in. The smell of her shampoo, clean and light, trails behind her. “I’m the one who just learned something new.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They’re Kahi’s last group for the day. With a green fountain pen she writes in a yellow notepad. Her hair is up in a loose bun and she wears a white silk shirt under a burgundy blazer thrown over her shoulders like a cape, looking every inch a high-ranking company executive. Jonghyun, Woojin, Guanlin, Daehwi, Seongwoo, Jaehwan, then Minhyun stand ten feet from the desk from left to right. It’s all they can do to keep their feet from shuffling as they await her verdict.

 

Jonghyun’s palms run sweaty. He twists them on the side of his jersey. They run sweaty whenever she’s in the room; it’s been this way since their first audition when Kahi and the rest of the panel had found them lacking.

 

Kahi looks up from her notes.

 

“Small mistakes look big on camera,” Kahi starts. “Lucky for you, that was nearly perfect. First thing I have to ask is—Woojin, what’s going on? You keep rubbing your eye.”

 

“Just itchy,” Woojin says. “It won’t happen on performance day.”

 

“It’s on all of you to take care of each other, but you have to take care of yourselves, too.” She says this with a pointed look at Jonghyun. “Technically speaking, you’re all in a good place. I would have expected nothing less from trainees of your rank. But there’s room for improvement.”

 

Jonghyun bites his tongue. He breathes hard to bring back some feeling to his face.

 

  
“This song is about love lost,” Kahi continues. “And I’m not getting that intensity from your expressions.” She leans forward, as if sensing the unease that’s suddenly descended on their team. “You’ve been blessed to perform one of the star tracks in this season of Produce 101. I’m telling you this because I think you have the range to rise to the challenge.”

 

Lifting her gaze, she narrows her eyes and scans the line again. “I was just with the _Open Up_ team before coming here.” Kahi leans forward. “Their practice was powerful. They conveyed the physical desperation the song requires. Your song isn’t so different from theirs, really. So I need to see that kind of desperation from all of you.”

 

The boys shuffle from side to side, avoiding each other’s eyes.

 

She looks down the line and her gaze settles. Jonghyun sneaks a look out of the corner of his eye. “It seems to me that Seongwoo and Daehwi have digested the song well. Perhaps you’ve both experienced the kind of odd feeling that the song is about.” Kahi flashes a brief smile at the two of them, who hinge deeply at the waist and whimper _thank you Kahi-sunbaenim._

 

“Jaehwan,” she continues, leaning back and folding her arms. “I need you to sing the killing line as if you’ve just realized you can never sing again.”

 

Jaehwan gulps.

 

“Woojin, this song isn’t about anger. It’s about longing. You need to make it softer.”

 

Woojin nods, rubbing his eyes.

 

“Guanlin. You have the opposite issue. Imagine that you can never go back home again. And give me that feeling.”

 

Guanlin’s eyes widen, but he nods. “Yes, teacher.”

 

“Minhyun,” Kahi shakes her head, hiding a smile behind her hand. “Give me more warmth. Think about someone you left behind when you left home for the first time. It could be anyone.”

 

Minhyun nods. Behind a nervous quiver of his lips, he can barely return Kahi’s smile.

 

“And Jonghyun—”

 

Jonghyun stands up straighter and forces himself to meet Kahi’s eyes.

 

She flips through her notes. “Why does Kim Jonghyun have the fewest parts?”

 

The camera swivels. Jonghyun feels everyone’s eyes on him. “The rap parts were more suited for Woojin and Guanlin’s vocal tone,” he says. “I felt that _Never_  was better served by giving them more chances to shine.”

 

“Ah,” Kahi says. “But I really enjoyed your delivery at the bridge. For me, it’s a shame.”

 

Jonghyun licks his lips, his throat dry. “The song is very suited to their tone,” he repeats.

 

Kahi narrows her eyes. From where they are, it’s hard to tell whether she’s smiling or not. “Then Woojin and Guanlin should be very thankful to have such a generous and self-sacrificing leader.” She raises her voice: “Are you grateful, boys?”

 

The two in question bow deeply and announce _yes, we are._

 

They get back in formation and the music starts once more. When they finish the routine, they hold their final pose for a full fifteen seconds before Kahi claps.

 

“Better,” Kahi says. “You’re dismissed. Minhyun, please take Woojin to the infirmary. Kim Jonghyun, stay for a moment. I need to have a word with you.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

The boys exit in a tidy row. On his way out, Minhyun tries to catch Jonghyun’s eye, but Jonghyun pretends not to see. Kahi waits until all the the others have left before dismissing the cameramen as well with an imperious toss of her head. Then it’s just him and Kahi and the hum of the aircon in Studio C. The chill blowing over his sweat makes him feel terribly exposed.

 

“Pledis Entertainment’s Kim Jonghyun,” Kahi says, BoA mimicry, as if she’s calling his name before announcing his rank. It sends shivers down his spine. He looks up to respond and finds her smiling at him warmly. It catches him off guard.

 

“Did you eat today?” And suddenly she’s no longer an executive or a teacher or a mentor or even a married woman and a mother, but the _noona_  in the company who would bring him snacks and tell him that he’d be a success if he just worked hard and took care of himself. His eyes grow hot with shame and gratitude and he shakes his head.

 

She clucks her tongue. “So you forgot to.”

 

Jonghyun admits as much. His stomach growls, right on cue. Kahi laughs in surprise, and then stands up and gathers her things. She puts her notepad and pen in her black leather handbag and slings it over her shoulder.

 

“It’s time for dinner.” she says. “Come on, Jonghyun-ah.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kahi drives a crimson BMW Series 5 with heated bucket seats, tinted windows, and a sound system with an incredible bass register. The back seat is littered with baby toys: a baby rattle lined in yellow yarn. A thick, puffy picture book about vegetables. A white plastic ring strung with bright plastic beads the size of gumballs, looped around the seatbelt. A light blue blanket in a downy material, bunched into a black car seat.

 

Bunched in beside all the play-paraphernalia on a heated passenger seat in his hoodie and shorts, Jonghyun feels more like a kid than ever. He apologizes for taking away Kahi’s time with her family.

 

“Oh, Jonghyun,” she shakes her head. “Someday when you have your own kids, you’ll know. You love them, but you’ll also be happy to get away from the fatsos every now and then.”

 

Kahi’s casual reply makes him pick at his fingernails. He’s not sure what to say to that, so he comments on the music instead. It’s a modern R&B piece and the song is in English.

 

“My husband was in San Francisco recently,” she says, pulling right to exit the highway. They slow down as they reach a stoplight, and she turns up the music. “His colleague gave us tickets to to this singer’s concert. I don’t know all the words, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?”

 

Jonghyun remembers that Kahi’s husband is the CEO of a major tech accessories company. His laptop case at home is from her husband’s company. He remembers when Kahi was the eldest trainee at Pledis, when she was waiting to debut, how she used to be short with the members of After School. Not because she was mean-spirited, but because she wanted them to be better and they didn’t have time to waste. Jonghyun had watched her career at Pledis flourish and wane. And she hadn’t given up. She kept the door open for herself, as a dancer, as a soloist, as a wife, as a judge, as a mother, as a teacher—

 

The bass thumps and shakes the car. Kahi throws her head back against the seats and hums along, singing along in imperfect English. Jonghyun is unsure of where to look or if he is allowed to sing along, so he looks straight ahead and coughs lightly when the light turns from red to green. Kahi puts the pedal down and the car revs and jumps ahead.

 

Jonghyun yelps. Kahi laughs.

 

Kahi had gotten married in Hawaii two years ago. Jonghyun remembers the photos she had shared with them, back when they were still promoting _Love Paint._ She looked beautiful and happy in her white dress, the ocean behind her and a tan on her arms and neck, a broad smile on her face that reached her eyes and made them crinkle around the edges. She wasn’t like many of the other women in Pledis Entertainment, or even like any other woman Jonghyun knew. There was something abrasive and direct about her. He felt awkward spending time with her like this, but he was deeply grateful and honored that she was herself with him.

 

Kahi sings along until they pull up to the restaurant. She has picked a popular place in Paju that serves Gangwon cuisine. They do two loops around the parking lot before a spot frees up. She backs into it in reverse, long neck twisting around to gauge the distance, lips pursed in concentration. Jonghyun is impressed. He can barely drive a straight line in _Kart Rider._

 

The restaurant itself looks like a Swiss cottage, with a bright yellow exterior and a green tile roof and a pale pink staircase that leads up to the first floor. Inside, the atmosphere is warm and noisy, and there are fresh flowers at every table. The restaurant booths are pink, framed in white lattice fencing. _La Vie en Rose_ plays in the background. It doesn’t seem like the kind of place that would serve local fare from his hometown, but here they are.

 

After they are seated, Kahi immediately orders. There are only two set menus to choose from—the 9900 won set meal, with nine courses, or the 13,900 won meal, with twelve courses, one of which is chives and pork belly. Jonghyun’s mouth waters. She orders the twelve course set menu for both of them.

 

They’re both hungry—and tuck into the first few courses without talking. Jonghyun likes spicy cuisine fine enough, but a few bites into the mild taste of Gangwon-do—the simple flavors, nothing too salty—make him feel like he’s back home and safe. It’s like he’s getting healthier already. As Minhyun would call it, _healing_.

 

“When was the last time you were home?” Kahi says, as the waiter puts down the next dishes—whole chicken stewed in mung beans, and fresh kimchi.

 

Jonghyun closes his eyes and tries to remember. “Christmas, actually.” Almost half a year ago. It seems so far away.

 

Kahi asks about his parents and his sisters. “And your father—does he still want you to become an accountant?” She laughs, but her eyes are gentle. No, Jonghyun assures her. His father was worried about him coming onto the show, but since his rank has been rising in recent weeks, everyone feels better about his progress. Unspoken: his life choices.

 

“You know that you’re learning so much more than you would be in school, right?” The _buchu bossam_ , chives and pork belly, arrives as Kahi chews down on her first helping of chicken. “In our world, you learn about people. Their best and worst sides. You learn how to follow orders, and when to challenge them—and how to do so in a way that helps your image. You learn how to take feedback. How to be humble. And as a leader for your team, you learn how to help everyone work together. Great things only get done in teams.”

 

She says the last part more to herself than to Jonghyun. “It seems that your members are doing well these days,” she nods. “I remember Dongho’s visual entrance during the _Boy in Luv_ stage—perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but his performance really knocked us over. I was so proud of him.”

 

Jonghyun smiles and agrees. The waiter comes over to collect the empty dishes from their table.

 

“It must have been hard,” Kahi continues. “To not perform with each other on every stage.”

 

Jonghyun nods. It was hard for Dongho. For Minki. They were on separate teams. But it was good for them. Minki had low confidence going in, but in helping the younger trainees with their singing and dancing, he’s found that he can be a leader in his own way. Dongho has also been coaching the trainees in his team and learning how to lead too.

 

“How does that make you feel?”

 

Jonghyun bites back a laugh. He’s glad, he says. That now Dongho knows what it is to have to be the responsible one in a team. That he has to spend time with others to make sure that everyone is following along.

 

“Does he know, though?” Kahi grins. “I’m kidding. He’s been very good. Pledis Entertainment’s own _Sexy Bandit_.”

 

He wants to retort that Dongho has gotten carried away and maybe even a bit lost. He wants to tell Kahi that he’s not sure how to handle this issue with Dongho and Daehwi. Or that even if he knew how to handle it, that he’s not sure he wants to. Because in some way, that might mean looking at his past straight in the eye and telling himself something he doesn’t want to hear. The waiter comes with the last few dishes— _gamja ongsimi sujebi_ , chewy potato dumplings in a hot stew, and grilled fish—before Kahi can notice the change in his expression.

 

He puts a smile on his face.

 

“Minhyun and I have been lucky.”

 

“Oh? How so.”

 

“We’ve had a lot of chances to perform on the same team. I feel a bit sorry to Dongho and Minki. They’ve had to go at it alone, but for the most part Minhyun and I have been able to perform together.”

 

“You feel guilty?” Kahi shakes her head. “Oh wait, I’ve forgotten who I’m talking to. Of course you do.”

 

Jonghyun hangs his head.

 

“Jonghyun. You don’t need to feel guilty for doing good for yourself,” Kahi says. “And you don’t need to apologize to anyone for anything. And you don’t need to beat yourself up for all the things you could or shouldn’t have done. You’ll get white hairs at your age if you keep thinking like that.”

 

“I think I might have some now.”

 

Kahi laughs. “You’ve done very well for your team, to get everyone here. Be gentle once in a while, okay? I know it’s not easy to do so on set. But remember how much your members love and support you. Be gentle with them.”

 

Jonghyun knows those last words are for how he treated Minhyun earlier today. That this is why Kahi pulled him aside. That this is what the dinner is about.

 

“It’s okay, Jonghyun. It’s okay.” Kahi hands him a napkin. He dots the corners of his eyes with it. “It’s hard.”

 

“I should be nicer. I should do more to show my appreciation—”

 

“It’s not that you have to try to _do_  anything,” Kahi says. “Actually, I think you’ll find the solution if you don’t try so hard.”

 

Jonghyun feels as if Kahi has just told him he’s grown a third head.

 

“Not everything is the product of hard work. Sometimes good things happen when you trust yourself. So just trust yourself, Jonghyun. You are already doing well. It wouldn’t be worth it if after all this you lost a friend.”

 

She pauses.

 

“But Minhyun has always been more than that to you, hasn’t he?”

 

Jonghyun feels a sigh rolling from him like the final wave in an ocean. He feels at once relieved and ashamed that Kahi has said the words for him. He should have been able to say it himself.

 

Dessert finally arrives—six green ramie rice cakes on a lacquered black plate. Kahi declines her portion and sits back in her chair. Jonghyun takes one and bites it in half. It’s filled with sweetened red bean paste. The paste is ground so finely and sweetened so delicately it almost tastes like dark chocolate. The ramie imparts a fresh, herbal flavor. He really likes it.

 

Jonghyun looks at the remaining rice cakes. “Can I take the rest of these back?”

 

Kahi smiles knowingly, and calls for the check.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Kahi drops him off back at the studio. It’ll take her another hour to get back to Seoul, so he’s especially grateful for her time and for dinner and for everything.

 

She tells him that it’s no trouble at all. And: _Don’t tell the production crew. They’ll think I’m biased_. He laughs and tells her he’ll remove evidence that anything ever happened.

 

The hallway is empty and so is the cafeteria. Jonghyun takes the ramie rice cakes out of the paper bag he’s been carrying them in and folds it in plastic wrap, disposing of the takeaway packaging. Then he heads up the stairs back to the room.

 

Most of the boys are being rowdy in the common room. The door to the dorms is ajar and he slips in. Jaehwan is writing in his journal and humming snippets of songs. Seongwoo and Daniel are watching a movie on Seongwoo’s bed, something foreign, with earbuds plugged in and faces gawking at the screen.

 

Minhyun is dozing on top of the covers with a thick novel splayed on his chest. His booklight has fallen off and onto his throat, illuminating the hollow of it.

 

Jonghyun almost decides not to wake Minhyun, but as if sensing his presence, Minhyun’s eyes open.

 

“Ah, you’re back.”

 

Jonghyun kneels next to the bed and shows the rice cakes. “Brought you something.”

 

Minhyun takes the ramie cakes, sniffs them once, twice, and then unwraps them. They look like baby turtles coming out of their swaddle, Minhyun a kindly veterinarian with pale long fingers. Jonghyun watches Minhyun eat and prays that Minhyun can taste his apology in the red beans.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.

 

Minhyun pauses chewing and swallows. His Adam’s apple bobs under the beam of the booklight. “For what?” But his eyes, soft and encouraging and gentle, tell Jonghyun that he knows exactly what.

 

“For earlier. I’ve been in a bad mood all today.”

 

“It’s okay. It’s because you forgot to eat,” Minhyun says, and unwraps another ramie rice cake, putting it up to Jonghyun’s lips. “Here.”

 

His hand comes up to take the rice cake, but Minhyun pulls it out of reach.

 

“Really?” Jonghyun laughs.

 

“It’s the only way you’ll learn your lesson.”

 

Jonghyun takes the bite as offered, chewing slowly, stickiness all over his teeth as Minhyun’s inky gaze works over him. He feels the heat coming off Minhyun’s fingers and the green fragrance of the rice cake — tinged with milkiness, a hint of salt — and the tingle in his ears and the sweet in his bones. Even though he is eating he finds himself hungry all over again, the hunger prompting an invisible voice.

 

“Min—” he starts, breath catching in his throat like a hook. “I’ve—” and his voice trails off as Minhyun blinks slowly and sits up straighter. His eyes aren’t on Jonghyun—they’re on the door, where Seonho has just walked in.

 

“Seonho? The heck are you doing in here?” Jaehwan’s projectile voice asks for all of them. Minhyun shoots a quick look at Jonghyun. Seonho, backlit by the hallway, looks so imposing and sad all at once at being found out.

 

“I’m here to visit hyung,” Seonho says after the laughter subsides.

 

“Oh, Seonho.”

 

“Are you eating something?” Seonho’s voice floats over, but some barrier keeps him from venturing closer. Jonghyun feels some irritation, some tenderness, some admiration for the boy.

 

“Seonho—it’s late.” Minhyun sighs. “You should go back to your own room and get some sleep.”

 

“But it’s not even late,” Seonho protests. Jonghyun stands up.

 

“Seonho-yah—we should both do what Minhyun says. Let’s go wash up.” Jonghyun gets his own toothbrush from his toiletries kit under the bed. He walks Seonho out of the dorm with a firm hand on his back.

 

Seonho’s toothbrush is a cheerful canary yellow, with splayed bristles. He sullenly squirts a blob of toothpaste on it. Jonghyun has never seen a more dejected face in the mirror.

 

He and Seonho brush their teeth. Seonho drops his toothbrush next to Minhyun’s when he is done. Water from the bristles drips down the side of the cup.

 

When Jonghyun finishes, he mulls over it for a moment. Then he puts his toothbrush there too.

 

 

* * *

 

 

A long time ago and yet, all at once—

 

Kim Jonghyun wakes up. The room is dark. The window in their dorm faces the neighboring building, so they don’t get any sunlight. It makes it hard to know what time it is. But when his eyes adjust, he sees Minhyun lying next to him, eyes open.

 

“Sorry,” Minhyun says quietly. The others still haven’t woken. Dongho is snoring in the top bunk across the aisle. The mattress above creaks as Aaron shifts in his sleep. The twisting heap of blankets in the next bunk over covers Minki’s shock of long blond hair.

 

“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asks. His throat is still rough from sleep. He coughs to clear it. Minhyun doesn’t reply, but just takes Jonghyun’s hand in his and holds on.

 

“Just nervous about today,” Minhyun says in a clear voice. There’s a fine line of sweat beading on his upper lip. Minhyun’s tongue flickers out to lick it away. Worried about all the things that could be or could never be. A million thoughts racing through his head at once.

 

“We’ve worked hard,” Jonghyun squeezes hard on Minhyun’s hand. “We’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

 

Their first music video will be released today. They have performances lined up at all the major networks over the next few weeks. But today is the day they finally become artists. For the last three days it feels like they’ve been standing at the edge of a cliff, one step away from soaring or plummeting down a cool ten thousand feet. Jonghyun’s hands are getting clammy just thinking about it. He tries to pull them away but Minhyun just squeezes all the tighter.

 

“It’s okay, Minhyun.” Jonghyun says, for the both of them. “It’ll be great. We’ve done our best. And we have each other. Here. Come here.”

 

Outside, the air is a cold spring zero and the hard little dot of Venus is rising and below it the thin break of day. Inside, Jonghyun opens his arms and Minhyun does too and they hold each other like that until both their shakes go away.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big big big thanks goes to my first reader perkybird for her attention to detail and research capabilities — she always makes time to interrogate my word choices and characterizations even when she’s got homework and projects and crits and reviews and a million other things going on. Last weekend, I realized that there were a whole bunch of structural things in the entire story I needed to iron out (also why this chapter is 2x as long as the others and a bit late). 
> 
> So... will JH get his act together and stop being so goddamned subtle about everything? Who will MH choose? Will he even choose at all? :-OOOOO
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	4. The Space Cadet

 

 

All right, I’ll be honest, even though you probably already know. It would be a lot harder to do any of this without Kim Jonghyun.

 

To be patient with others. To stay up all night practicing. To remember to eat. Kim Jonghyun has a certain magic to him: one of his talents being his ability to think through every possible angle of a problem and solve it with a gracious murmur. Another being his ability to tame the wild jungle that is the world and make it a place where order is not just respected, but a cozy and natural phenomenon.

 

You know. You’ve seen it too. 

 

It’s 12:30pm on a Friday and Jonghyun’s group has just finished recording the audio for _Super Hot_. The younger ones especially are at the edge of their hunger. Everybody’s voice is tired now after all the singing. Like bears in the winter, they are conserving their energy.

 

That said, Jonghyun always remembers when it’s time to eat. Like now.

 

“It’s time to eat,” Jonghyun says, right on cue. (I told you.)

 

The younger crowd whoops and cheers. From youngest to eldest they file out, shoes clomping and dusting and stamping. He looks surprised to see me here outside but he shouldn’t be. I place a hand on his lower back because I like it when he’s like this.

 

Even now, so many years together, his ears still turn red when I touch him. Cute.

 

The cafeteria is already crowded—many of the boys have already finished their activities for the morning and have stormed the canteen. Jonghyun and I drop our sweatshirts at an open table to reserve the space, and we join the others in line.

 

“Hyung!” Yoo Seonho appears out of nowhere and loops an arm around me, “how was your recording session? I missed you.”

 

“Ah,” I’m aware that others are looking, waiting to see what I’ll do. I remove Seonho’s arm and give him a side embrace. “You miss me already? I just saw you this morning.”

 

Lai Guanlin arrives on the scene, surveying the dessert bar with a surprisingly critical eye. “C’mon, bro—we’ve been working hard. I want to eat.” Jonghyun smiles out of the corner of his mouth. Proud of his little prodigy, it’s obvious.

 

“After lunch, I want to ride,” Seonho tells me, before Guanlin drags him away.

 

It’s Friday, so the cafeteria is serving bibimbap for lunch. When we get our food and sit back down, Seonho is still waving over in our direction, batting his eyelashes and blowing air kisses. I direct my attention to my stone bowl.

 

“The kid really likes you, doesn’t he.” Jonghyun keeps his voice low in the din of the cafeteria, so I have to lean forward to catch it. Jonghyun’s breath puffs over the edge of my ear like a hand caressing the side of a polished car.

 

“His feelings for me are enough to power the earth’s gravitational field.”

 

Jonghyun laughs. I wonder what it would be like if the cafeteria were its own planet. It probably would not make it for very long. Jonghyun, deep at the core, made of the reddest lava, volcanoes erupting gently whenever he laughs. I sit on top of the molten core, the earth’s crust. El Niño strokes my face once a year, the hurricanes exfoliate my skin. Seonho is one of the many moons in this planetary system, and his path is deeply irregular. An annoying and persistent moon, always trying to capture the earth’s attention. Trying to part the oceans to get to the center. Causing earthquakes.

 

“What did you do to deserve such a blessing?”

 

“You keep saying that these days. Please tell me how this is a blessing.” My mouth is filled with rice, but it’s Jonghyun, so I don’t mind a little bit of impropriety.

 

“Well,” and here Jonghyun pauses. “It must be nice to have someone who likes you so much. He’s always looking for you, so you must never feel lonely. And he approaches you very often with little gifts.”

 

“But so do you, dear leader.” I bat my eyelashes and press my thigh against Jonghyun’s under the table. Jonghyun chokes. This pleases me.

 

When we were younger, we would find all manner of ways to share food. Cookies here. A cheap packet of ramen noodles there. Hot dogs, buns, kimbaps, picked up on visits to the convenience store, at subway stops, past food stands. But that was before we joined the show. Before we had the chance to redeem ourselves.

 

Nu’est, the failed idol group. The phrase hurts, doesn’t it? We had debuted six years ago and we were supposed to go onto great things. Become celebrities. Now, we eat meals off pre-mounded metal trays in a cafeteria on a reality elimination show and we drink lukewarm soup.

 

“It’s around the time that your daily blessing arrives,” Jonghyun says, clearing his throat, keeping his eyes averted.

 

“I wish he would find others to give him a ride.” I think of Dongho, whose broad shoulders and stouter frame would be compellingly solid. “Our Baekho would be a good candidate, no?”

 

“Well—” Jonghyun starts, and then stops.

 

I feel something prickle at my skin. “What? Is it because Lee Daehwi would get jealous?”

 

My tone is playful but Jonghyun’s face has taken on a wooden quality. He shovels mouthfuls of rice into his mouth like one of those malnourished children on the postcards who finds the sight of real food alien but eats like it’s his first and last meal.

 

Look. Gossip runs rife in small, enclosed, fermenting spaces as intense as the pickle jar we inhabit now. I’ve seen what I’ve seen and I know what I know, especially about my own members. Produce 101’s charismatic center and our surly Baekho are an open secret at this point. Like they say in the United States military, _don’t ask, don’t tell_. Actually, they probably say this everywhere. The same applies to all-boys schools in England and military barracks in the desert and Victorian ladies’ florid letters to one another and 21st-century reality shows that feature one hundred young men and boys competing for love and votes. It’s the kind of secret that’s as old as time.

 

Minki was obviously the first to notice something. Something that happened during the position challenge. Our Ren and our Baekho had both selected the same song, after all. I could tell from his uneasy gaze. He had told me in the night, Minhyunnie, do you think we should say something? Do something?

 

I was worried too. But it was funny to see Dongho so caught off guard. A part of me wanted to see what would happen. Maybe our Baekho would learn a thing or two by challenging himself in this way. Lee Daehwi was a force to be reckoned with, after all. And technically, nothing had happened yet.

 

But looking at Jonghyun’s face, you would think that I had just told him the world was ending.

 

“Jonghyun,” I call his name, because he has the habit of sinking into a well so deep it takes gravity reversing to fish him back out again. “Did something happen?”

 

Jonghyun shakes his head, but it’s more an automatic response than anything.

 

If you know how to read him, Jonghyun is an open book. Until you find a page under lock and key. You can somewhat make out the words on the other side of the page because the paper is thin, but it’s hard.

 

Jonghyun studies his bibimbap intently with his chopsticks, trying to assemble the perfect ratio of carrot to beef. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not important.”

 

“You’re not a very good liar, Jonghyun.”

 

The look on his face makes my heart twist. I can almost hear him cursing himself.

 

“Jonghyun,” I put a hand on his forearm, under the table. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

 

As if they can actually detect secrets, one of the auto-cameras at the end of our table whirls itself around, and a cameraman on the other end of the room begins to head our way. Jonghyun’s forearm tenses under my grip, and then he turns away.  

 

“Some other time,” he says brusquely.

 

“I just want to help.” I really do. If he’d just let me. I think back to the other day, when he’d overfilled his bottle at the water cooler and water spilled everywhere. Sometimes he’s so stubborn about doing everything himself that he won’t even let a good friend bring him a towel, even when the situation is critical.

 

“And I just want to protect you,” Jonghyun snaps, then recoils as if he’s been burned.

 

Protect me from what? I would be insulted if I weren’t worried. I’m taller than him, after all.

 

By the time the cameraman reaches our table, we’ve finished our lunch and are bussing our trays to the dishwashers. I’m aware that my own expression is frozen into a ventriloquist dummy’s smile; it’s not going anywhere.

 

I give the camera a cheerful wave as we pass, thinking faraway thoughts, like—

 

 

* * *

 

  
A long time ago, in another world, and also in another dimension, there were five warriors. Each beautiful in his own way, boasting unique talents.

 

These five warriors had left their hometowns to fight in glorious battle and bring honor back to their families. They trained together in the barracks for many years before their commander let them in the field.

 

But in the field, they found that battle was not as glorious as it seemed and war was not beautiful no matter who it was fought for. Actually, the glory of battle was just one big PR scam. But by then, it was too late for them to learn to do other things, like double-book accounting or professional skiing.

 

Trapped in the tyranny of their past choices, they continued to fight alongside each other everyday. Some of them wondered if life were better outside the battlefield, but no one had the courage or the vision to leave the life they had chosen.

 

One of them, the voice of reason, told them that at the end of the day, careers weren’t really that different. One could be a warrior or one could be an accountant, but there would still be highs and lows with each job, joys and traumas. So really, once they were all dead, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference what kind of career they chose. The important thing was to do well with the time that they had left on their planet.

 

And so they fought on under the guise of perseverance and rightful decision-making. Sometimes, they got invited to press conferences.

 

To be continued.

 

 

* * *

 

  
The world of Produce 101 is a world of work, sleep, and high emotions. I’m not unfamiliar with the first two concepts, but constant swings of emotions can give me migraine headaches, which can only be mitigated through short naps. It is due to one of these headache-combatting naps that I don’t hear Seonho come into the room.

 

I open my eyes to find him staring at me and his hand on my mouth. “Shh.”

 

It’s alarming. What have I done wrong? What does Seonho have planned? But he removes his hand. We are alone in the room. It is so quiet that you can hear the cicadas outside.

 

He nudges me to move over and I do so, if only out of curiosity. But all he does is lie down next to me and close his eyes.

 

Now I’m trapped between Seonho and the wall. Seonho, who loves me with the intensity of an irregular asteroid on a collision course with prehistoric earth. The wall, which cares not an iota for me and will not rearrange its molecular structure to let me pass. I feel like a brontosaurus that has just stumbled into a pit of rabid, hibernating wombats.

 

This would be the perfect time to tell you my true feelings about Seonho, but he interrupts me.

 

“I looked for you after lunch.”

 

“Sorry. I wasn’t feeling well.”

 

“You were supposed to give me a piggyback ride.”

 

Is that what this is all about? “Aw, Seonho. I can give you one now.”

 

“That’s not what this is about.”

 

Oh. “What is this about?”

 

“Why don’t you get it, Minhyun? Do I really have to tell you like this? Is this what you want?”

 

Spring has arrived. The wombats are beginning to rouse. Is my reptilian hide thick enough to stop the oncoming teeth?

 

“It’s like you don’t even take me seriously.”

 

“No, no, of course I do.” I turn around and fix Seonho with my maximum oily gaze. It stops his breath in his throat and I crawl over him and emerge into the aisle between the bunks. I kneel down and present my back to him. “Come on. It’s piggyback time.”

 

Seonho wraps his arms around my neck and rocks me back. He buries his nose in my hair. I can hear how thick his breathing is.

 

Before he even tells me he loves me, I already feel like dinosaur bones at the bottom of the ocean.

 

For a breath, the world leaves me, and I it.

 

Because a long time ago, in another dimension, in another bunk bed in another company dorm, Kim Jonghyun rolled over in bed and almost told me the same thing.

 

That’s how Ong Seongwoo finds us when he steps into the room not a moment too soon, his own face ruddy and tear-stained.

 

“Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds.” There’s no mirth in his voice. He crawls up to his bunk, flopping onto his pillow face first.

 

I extricate myself from Seonho’s embrace and stand up.

 

“Let’s go take a walk outside. I think Seongwoo wants to be alone.”  


 

* * *

  
  
  
I expect Seonho to ask me about why Seongwoo has been crying, but he’s so wrapped up in his own thoughts he doesn’t seem to have noticed. That’s all right.

 

We pass Daniel on our way to the cafeteria. He flashes a half-smile, but otherwise seems gloomy. Today seems like an unlucky day for all of us.  

 

We enter one of the smaller rooms, the one that A- _ban_ had their original evaluation in. The room had held a previous mystique and prestige even a few weeks ago, but now it looks just like any other practice room. Cold, too—without the peripheral heat of bodies in motion, it feels like the kind of freezer where scientists store seeds and DNA just in case. I sit down and Seonho takes a seat next to me, face ashen.

 

“Seonho.”

 

“No,” Seonho says. Tears well up in his eyes and his face turns red. “I don’t want to talk to you. Hyung is being scary right now.”

 

“Seonho,” I lean in. “I’m not angry with you.”

 

“Well, I’m angry at you!”

 

“Why?”

 

Seonho starts to cry. “It’s only that,” he hiccups, somewhat encouraged, “everyone is leaving me behind. You, Jinyoung, Jonghyun, everyone. You guys are going to get in and I’ll be left behind.”

 

“Are you scared, Seonho?”

 

“Yes, I’m scared!”

 

“Tell hyung why.”

 

“Because,” Seonho hiccups, “I don’t want to be all alone. I love you. I want us to be friends forever. I want to be with you every day just like we are together now.”

 

I try to put myself in his shoes. Four beautiful warriors board a rocket ship headed to Ganymede. Accidentally or not, Hwang Minhyun is left behind on a lonely earth, waving a white flag taller than he is, hoping someone remembers him.

 

My dinosaur bones hurt. “Oh, Seonho.”

 

I reach across the table and squeeze his hand. Seonho buries his face in the crook of his elbow and hangs onto me with his other hand, his wet sobs like the tide rolling onshore in slow motion. I have nothing to say, because I don’t feel the same way. All I can do is hold Seonho’s hand and let him ride the waves until they’re over and think about how I lack so much.

 

I don’t have words that can change the mood of the moment, like our Baekho does. I’m not like our Ren, who is warm and dispenses hugs freely. Or Aaron, who would be able to understand someone simply by hearing a few words here and there.

 

If Jonghyun were here—

 

“It feels like a piece of me got lost,” Seonho says, radio transmissions from another planet. “And the only way I can get it back is to be with you.”

 

_I know, Seonho. I know._   
  


 

* * *

  
  
  
After the final press conference, the last warrior boards the spaceship that will take him to Ganymede, leaving the land of dinosaurs and wombats. On board, he bathes in a special below-zero cryogenic liquid, which will preserve his body for the long run. The immersion feels like centipedes.

 

Now unconscious, he doesn’t notice when he flies over the moon, land pockmarked by asteroid scars. Mars and the asteroid belt pass him by as slow as a stew. Hundreds of years go by. Time gets stretched out the longer he goes.

 

When he finally comes to, he feels long and rubbery. The warrior with the voice of reason is checking his vitals.

 

“You’re finally awake,” he exclaims. “Was it hard? Did you remember to eat?”

 

“It wasn’t easy,” the space cadet says weakly. “‘I forgot to.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's Day everyone! And what would Valentine's Day be without confessions of love? :-) 
> 
> Sorry I had to put Seonho down this way. But that's love for you: unpredictable, always crazy, never quite rational, too into itself to care.


	5. The Projection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lai Guanlin weighs in.

 

 

Guanlin's heart had never dropped of his chest until he left Taipei and came to Seoul. It happened for the first time when they called rankings for the final selection and he had plummeted from Rank 2 to Rank 20.

 

On stage he was nothing but a lanky tremble. His heart felt like it had been kicked down a gorge and yanked up by a hair and he had just barely caught it, a slippery red mess. He was filled with shame and fury at the thought of how close his elimination could have been. Of going back home to Taiwan, a dying country where nothing moved quickly, where nothing happened, empty-handed. Of having to face his father who would tell him, his face sallow and hardened and full of sadness, I told you so _didi_.

 

Lai Guanlin stood on the stage and looked out at the audience and thought, who can help me besides myself. For he knew he had to help himself but he knew that if he tried to only help himself he would end up like Daehwi falling from the sky on wax-bound wings. Or like Samuel, alone and stranded on an island of his own singular mythology.

 

In his kicked to the curb heart Guanlin knew that Jonghyun held the key to his success and that Jonghyun had helped him when he was in need and would be likely to do so again. He didn’t want to be a burden but he needed the help so he sought out Jonghyun after their first _Super Hot_ practice session.

 

He let Jonghyun ask him if he was OK and he replied with yeah I’m fine but I need your help again, hyung. And when Jonghyun agreed without question, without reservation, Guanlin asked what he had wanted to ask for a while, which was why Jonghyun was so helpful in the first place.

 

Jonghyun looked embarrassed. He replied that he saw a bit of himself in Guanlin, to be honest. That he wished that someone had guided him like this when he had moved from Gangneung to the big city. That with Guanlin he saw someone with a lot of potential. That if he could help Guanlin be successful it would make him even more proud than if he did it himself. It wasn’t fair for Guanlin to be here in a new country barely speaking Korean to not get extra help and if Jonghyun could offer that to him then it would give him peace of mind.

 

This wasn’t a feeling Guanlin could readily understand and maybe it was because he was young. It seemed like something that good fathers did for their sons.

 

Do you remember when, Jonghyun sighed, and Guanlin did. He had been a human stumble while trying to find his way through the writing for _Fear_ and through his patience and his wordsmithing Jonghyun made Guanlin’s lyrics something palatable. And Jonghyun’s smile at him after their first rehearsal with the teachers was the way that he wished his own dad would see him when he finally debuted.

 

Jonghyun sighed back in the present day. Your face was so happy and you were so proud of yourself. I was proud of you too, Guanlin. 

 

Instead of hugging Jonghyun like he wanted Guanlin just said that he wanted very much to get into the top eleven and asked if there was something Jonghyun wanted very much too.

 

Oh, Jonghyun shook his head and looked down at his hands. Everyone wants something. Sometimes you want things a lot. There’s a difference between an award and an accomplishment. But that’s not something you need to know right now. For now, let’s just focus on you and your career, okay?

 

It wasn’t an answer to his question but it would do. Just because someone was kind to you didn’t mean that they were totally honest with you. It did make him wonder what Kim Jonghyun kept hidden from the rest of the world and if he hid things because his heart had already been kicked over the gorge one too many times.

 

  
#

 

  
His sister called him during a break and in the hall he leaned against the wall and caught her up. Slipping back into his mother tongue was a relief, though he would never tell any of his family that.

 

She asked him if he was being treated well and what he was most nervous about. He told her but didn’t tell her everything but then did tell her that he thought some of them liked each other. You know, that way.

 

What, like your buddy and the ice prince? That was her name for Minhyun. He grinned and covered his mouth with his sleeve.

 

Yeah like that, he groused low. I’m worried Seonho is gonna get hurt. It started as a touchy-feely thing just for fun but somewhere along the way it became real.

 

Hmm, his sister said. She was in college and studying psychology and he often told her about his teammates when they were being funny or acting out and he didn’t get it.

 

You can’t keep anyone from being hurt if they really want to hurt themselves, she said. But you can warn them that it might happen. What is the worst that could happen here?

 

I dunno, Guanlin mumbled. I guess if he does something rash like confessing to Minhyun and then gets depressed if and when the feelings aren’t mutual.

 

And then?

 

And then he doesn’t make it into the top eleven.

 

Do you want him there with you?

 

Yeah I do, Guanlin said.

 

His sister was quiet for a while. From the corner of his eye he saw Daehwi with a selfie-camera filming himself and Dongho and Minhyun drinking water from the fountain with Jonghyun behind him and Jaehwan crooning something obscene into Joo Haknyeon’s frozen smile.

 

You might not get that, his sister said. It all depends on his own effort. The most you can do is listen to him when he’s hurting and if he asks you and only if he asks you then you can tell him what you think he could do.

 

Okay _jie_ , he said, and it meant thanks and I love you.

 

Do you gotta go?

 

Yeah I do.

 

Give Woojin a kiss for me, she said, and hung up.

 

  
#

 

  
In Korean Guanlin was slow and he knew he looked like a dullard on TV. His nickname at home was The Sloth, which he was not keen to let anyone at Produce 101 know about in case it caught on as virally as Jihoon’s _jeo-jang_. But his brain worked fast even if he didn’t know how to translate everything he was thinking in real-time. It was inside the deeper workings that he put two and two together: that the way Seonho loved Minhyun with all his young heart Jonghyun did too but with a heart that was older and more beat up and careful.

 

Guanlin had been on the _Never_ team and it had not slipped his line of sight the way that Jonghyun’s commands were always echoed later and more quietly by Minhyun and that it was this combination of authority that solidified Jonghyun’s place as the leader among them.

 

From the bench inside the studio facing the glass door it had not slipped Guanlin’s line of sight that he had seen Jonghyun snap at Minhyun the day they were rehearsing for Kahi- _sunbaenim_. That for the rest of that evening Minhyun had nursed a mute and quiet devastation under a calm that would not be easily penetrated by Seonho’s relentless fawning.

 

From his bunk in the _Never_ room atop Jonghyun’s own it had not escaped him that the night Jonghyun had come back and apologized to Minhyun their voices had curled around each other like snakes seeking heat in each other under the moon and that when Seonho had come in the moment had been broken in a more real way than if it had been nothing.

 

It had taken him a moment to wonder why it had taken so long for him to see this. He realized he had been either coasting or hurting in his rank and he had come into the program thinking he would just mind his own damn business. But that somewhere somehow these people had become his brothers and his family and he had been hurting for that and so he let them in.

 

It was none of his business, but it still made him hurt for Seonho and Jonghyun both and the fast-approaching end of Produce 101 and because he knew he couldn’t do anything for either of them. It made him hurt because love and the wanting of love could make you blind to just about everything.

 

  
#

 

  
Almost two months ago, he had been the center and Jonghyun the leader and Moonbok and Taemin part of the team for their rap position challenge. Jonghyun had made two mistakes and had cried for garnering the most votes from the crowd. Guanlin had been resentful at that point and had more or less thought that Jonghyun had deserved to feel bad because even though Korean was not his first language Guanlin had managed to bring something exemplary to the stage and here Jonghyun was coasting on his reputation and his story.

 

Guanlin’s anger had subsided soon afterwards when he realized that it wasn’t a bad thing to be associated with such a selfless leader and that as long as he followed Jonghyun’s orders and accepted Jonghyun’s authority that Jonghyun would take care of him.

 

The two and two that Guanlin only put together now was that Jonghyun had felt guilt this whole time from winning first during their rap position challenge and had been giving parts of himself away to make up for that.

 

What a fresh hell it must be. Guanlin rubbed his face. It was none of his business but it was.

 

  
#

 

  
When he left Taipei to come to Seoul he thought he would miss his high school friends the most. These days, he had to think a little longer for all their names.

 

Produce 101 was not that different from high school because of the sheer amount work to be done but also because the people asking who liked this person and that person was almost just as bad as he remembered it being in school. Except that now when it wasn’t about girls in girl groups it was about boys that lived down the hall. That was a little new to Guanlin but hey they were all woke, right?

 

The day after Yongguk almost set the dorm on fire with his kitchen experiment, Seonho had gotten a new wind in his sail. Seonho announced to Guanlin that he would be telling Minhyun about his feelings soon. Guanlin wondered if his friend might be diving headfirst into a waterless pool but a part of him hoped that Minhyun-hyung had shown Seonho some signs of changing his mind and that that this would lead to something like a happy ending.

 

“Jonghyun-hyung gave me some ideas,” Seonho said. And this had sent prickles up and around the little hairs on Guanlin’s neck.

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“He said Minhyun likes things clean. That he likes rice cakes over buns and fresh food. That he keeps his promises. That he takes his vitamins every morning and his supplements every night. That he likes when someone remembers the little things. That he needs at least eight hours of sleep at night or else he gets grumpy. That Minhyun appreciates when...”

 

Guanlin let Seonho go on and on while looking at said Hwang Minhyun across the cafeteria and wondering how such a placid man could be the object of such earnest fixation. Said Hwang Minhyun sitting next to Kim Jonghyun who was smiling and pointing at a babbling Yoo Seonho with his eyes and looking back and forth between them. While looking Guanlin started getting mad because he realized something else was going on but that he couldn’t tell Seonho what it was or else Seonho would be even more hurt than he was already going to be.

 

“Jonghyun-hyung told you a lot.”

 

“Yeah! It was so nice of him.”

 

“Anything else?” Guanlin said. It was not hard for him to sound casual about it.

 

“He even told me he’d talk to Minhyun-hyung for me.”

 

“To say what?”

 

“Just to say nice things about me.” Seonho grinned. “I mean, I think my actions speak for themselves, but it doesn’t hurt for Minhyun to hear it twice, does it?”

 

To Guanlin’s sister it sounded like a classic case of crush brokerage.

 

What’s that, said Guanlin.

 

It’s like projection.

 

What’s that, said Guanlin.

 

It’s when you are guilty of doing something and you put the blame on others—for instance, let’s say that you’re a procrastinator.

 

Guanlin chortled at the thinly veiled accusation. Huh huh huh huh huh.

 

Well, if you weren’t honest with yourself, you might go around blaming everyone of being late and being lazy.

 

Why would you do that, Guanlin asked.

 

Why would you do that, she copied him. Oh _didi_ , she said. You really are such a baby.

 

He bristled and hung up.

 

  
#

 

  
Since he moved to Seoul, there were two times Guanlin’s heart dropped out of his chest. The first was when his rank was announced as twentieth in the last ranking before the finals. The second was when he saw Seonho curled up in fetal position crying his eyes out.

 

During a twilight walk around the track where Seonho told Guanlin he would do it, just straight up tell Minhyun about his feelings: Okay, Guanlin had said then. But seeing Seonho now hunched over like he was trying to keep himself from bleeding all over the cement stairs between the second and third floor, Guanlin wished he hadn’t.

 

Guanlin scrambled up the stairs and hugged Seonho hard, kicking up a flurry of concrete dust. He listened for the meaning of the words half-croaked and half-burbled, intermittently wiping away Seonho’s snot and tears with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

 

“I thought it would work,” Seonho choked out. “I thought I’d be fine. But it really hurts.”

 

Guanlin said it’s okay, it’s okayin Korean. In Chinese he said come on, don’t cry. In English he said don’t worry. Seonho’s sobs subsided into sniffles and then hiccups.

 

“It’s really like Jonghyun said,” Seonho said, voice hollow. “Sometimes when it hurts you just have to endure it.”

 

“When did he say that,” Guanlin seethed.

 

Seonho was quiet.

 

  
#

 

  
Guanlin waited until everyone left the studio. Jonghyun was packing up the iPad and shutting off the lights and taking his time shuffling around and Guanlin felt his anger simmering like street stall food bubbling in tins of broth and sauce.

 

“Jonghyun,” he said with his arms crossed, but when Jonghyun turned around Guanlin’s anger bled into confusion.

 

“Why did you give the bridge to Youngmin? It was your part, hyung.”

 

Jonghyun blinked twice. “It sounded better for him,” Jonghyun started, but Guanlin shook his head. Youngmin had cheated the system and it was his penalty to get a rap position that wasn’t in his best interests; there was no way that Jonghyun giving Youngmin any of his own parts was _fair_.

 

Jonghyun shrunk back. “I’m sorry, Guanlin—if you had wanted it, I didn’t know.”

 

It’s not that, Guanlin wanted to yell. It’s not like that.

 

“Look, I don’t know much.” He’d practiced this a few times. “I’m just a kid. I barely have any experience compared to you. And I’m really grateful to you, hyung, for everything you’ve done for me. But—”

 

_But for how much you help me and the others is the same reason Seonho got hurt. It’s not any of your business what happens with him and Minhyun. If he’s going to get hurt then he’s going to get hurt. What you did wasn’t helping and it wasn’t kind. I don’t know if you know that. And if you keep giving yourself away like this your rank is gonna fall just like mine and that’s not what we need. So stop feeling bad for whatever happened before and just—_

 

Instead, because he didn’t trust his words to not dissolve in a mush of syllables, Guanlin said: “just take care of your own business before helping others.”

 

  
#

 

  
“What do you think?” Seonho said. His eyes were sparkling as he scrubbed to the middle of the YouTube video again. Hyuna and Jang Hyunseung mouthed and whistled at the screen: _troublemaker, troublemaker_.

 

“I don’t know,” Guanlin replied. In his head he wondered: Is this even a popular song anymore?

 

As if reading his mind, Seonho told him it was _legendary_.

 

“And—the girl?” Guanlin said, gesturing between the two of them.

 

Seonho’s nose wrinkled in impatience. “Well, obviously I’ll be the girl. Sorry Guanlin, but you dance stiff. So I’m gonna be the one to make you look good.”

 

Guanlin had known Seonho for less than six months. What he knew was that the other boy was popular among the other Cube trainees, made everyone laugh and feel relaxed, and that the managers said he had a bright future. Seonho pointed a finger at Guanlin and said something that Guanlin translated roughly to:

 

 _If you’re that star-struck by the idea now, then you’ll explode when we actually do the dance._ And with that, Seonho jumped up and performed the slowest, clunkiest body roll Guanlin had ever seen.

 

I dunno, Guanlin said, but he felt himself smile, gums and all. His legs felt like standing up.

 

Come on, sexy, Seonho said. Come on, troublemaker.

 

  
#

 

You told him? His sister sounded surprised.

 

Yeah.

 

  
You told him that he had to straighten out his own house?

 

Yeah.

 

That’s—wow, _didi_. That’s a manly thing to do.

 

Guanlin grumbled in pleasure. I dunno. I just think you shouldn’t interfere when it comes to people’s private stuff.

 

But he helped you a lot to get where you are.

 

Yeah, Guanlin said. That’s true. That’s why it felt bad to say that to him. But it’s different. Your feelings for someone should just be between you and that person. We’re not in an ancient times anymore. We don’t need matchmakers for this kind of stuff. People should just handle it by themselves.

 

But say, if I needed you to help crush broker something between me and Park Woojin...

 

Seriously, _jie_? Just meet him yourself when you come for the finals ceremony.

 

She laughed.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Underneath that quiet shell of his is a real thinking man. I do love LGL. He would make a terrible salesman because he is lazy and has a shred of morality. He’s a good kid and a good friend. 
> 
> I am still plugging away at **The Sickness Unto Death** but chapters will be a bit slower in coming because I’m focused on finishing up this story first. Henry Miller said you gotta just write on one thing at a time until it’s done. The end is in sight! 
> 
> For anybody who is interested in writing themselves, I would recommend David Mamet’s course on dramatic writing from MasterClass.com. It’s incredible for learning how to write sharp dialogue and fast-moving scenes. The instructor is incredible—a seasoned Hollywood scriptwriting and Broadway playwriting pro—and just watching a few videos already has given me the lift I need to finish up my projects. Highly recommend!
> 
>  
> 
> _____________________________________________________________________________________  
>  **Time to write:** 4 hours 30 minutes  
>  _If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider leaving a kudo or a comment. It’s every writer’s fuel!_ ♡


	6. The Birthday Boy

It is in Jonghyun’s nature to humble himself before he can be humiliated in front of others. It is a good quality for a man to have and it also prevents one from getting hurt before one is ready.

 

Yesterday, he was twenty-two going on twenty-three. Today, he is twenty-three going on twenty-four. His time is running out. In Produce 101 he has been stripped to his bleeding self and bare bones and it is obvious to everyone right at this very moment how much nothing he has. A part of him is furious. Furious at the producer. This isn’t the way you coach. You don’t just incessantly berate people with vague insults. You give them specific instructions about what they can do better. But the producer has been in the industry for twenty years and he knows better. What does Jonghyun know.

 

“Again,” says their producer. “I can’t believe that you’ve received ten years of training but this is what you come up with. Again.”

 

Jonghyun’s head spins but he says yes and does so again and again.

 

“What are you doing? Wake up. Seriously, Jonghyun. Wake up. Do you think this is acceptable?”

 

“No,” he replies automatically.

 

“Come outside. Just come out.” The producer’s voice is raw with impatience and ready to blow.

 

Jonghyun hangs up the headphones and feels his fingers and everything go numb. When he steps through the door back into the recording lounge outside and everyone screams happy birthday and bursts into laughter, his body flashes hot and cold. Before he knows it he’s on his knees croaking in the corner and Minki’s arms are thrown around him.

 

“Are you okay?” Minki whispers. The cameraman edges into their view and Jonghyun knows if Minhyun had been on their team a prank like this would have never happened. But Minki isn’t Minhyun and this is Produce 101 and Jonghyun’s tears are now for the camera, for the camera. Jonghyun just tips his head back to try and re-absorb his tears into his head. But they come flowing anyway.

 

Dongho’s giggles blossom into laughter. He stoops down and smacks Jonghyun’s back with a resounding thwack. “Guess this makes us even,” he says.

 

“Shut up,” Minki tells Dongho. “Minhyun’s gonna kill us for this.”

 

  
#

 

  
Jonghyun is twenty-three today and he should have known that there would be something planned.

 

For the last six years running Minhyun would order a simple sponge gateaux from the local bakery. Jonghyun liked sweets that weren’t too sweet and his birthday cake would usually come with light buttercream frosting topped with jellied fruits and a sparkler for a candle. Aaron’s responsibility was to procure a stupid hat for Jonghyun that they would make him wear.

 

“Blackmail for later,” they’d say.

 

Jonghyun had told Minhyun that morning he didn’t need to do anything special. That today was just a day like any other day.

 

“Just like any other day that only comes once a year,” Minhyun said, and that was that. “Come to Studio C after dinner.”

 

  
#

 

  
After the prank he wants to go for a run but the ragged breaths are spilling from him still. That is how Minhyun finds him after lunch: dressed in joggers and stuck somehow to the bed. As if waiting.

 

“Oh, Jonghyun—” And Minhyun sits down next to him, slings an arm around him, and squeezes his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

 

“Ah,” Jonghyun laughs but it’s a pathetic sound. “So you heard.”

 

“It was all anyone could talk about.”

 

“God.” Public humiliation is one thing. Gossip is another. For Minhyun to find him like this—he’s terrified. Terrified that he’ll say something he shouldn’t or lean too far into Minhyun’s arms and wind up doing something only an idiot would do. He shrugs off Minhyun’s arm.

 

“Jonghyun?”

 

“I’ll be fine. It was just a prank.”

 

“It hurt you.”

 

“I’ll get over it. Don’t worry about me.” Minhyun reaches for him again but Jonghyun bats his hands away. Laughs, tries to be playful. “Really.”

 

“Jonghyunnie,” Minhyun’s voice is low and there is an undercurrent of something to it that makes Jonghyun wish that he could bury himself in the ground.

 

“I don’t want anyone’s pity. That’s the last thing I want. Especially from you.”

 

The sound from Minhyun’s throat makes Jonghyun look up just in time to see the hurt transform into something cool and distant. He wishes he had been born without a mouth.

 

“And why is that?”

 

“B-Because—” Jonghyun stutters.

 

“Is it because you’re too good to be helped?” Minhyun stands up. “I’m not taking pity on you, Jonghyun.”

 

“I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

 

“Nothing to worry about—” Minhyun repeats. His eyes are wild and yet hard. “You let them have you. Did you really think you were doing that badly?”

 

“Anything’s possible,” Jonghyun tries to smile, but it comes out crooked.

 

“Jonghyun.” And Jonghyun knows he needs to stop lying if only so that Minhyun doesn’t look at him like that, so that he doesn’t erode Minhyun’s belief in him, the only thread he has to the world sometimes. 

 

Jonghyun takes a deep breath and tries another truth instead. “I’m the idiot for believing it for as long as I did.”

 

“I can’t believe Dongho and Minki would let it happen to you.”

 

“Don’t blame them.”

 

“Dongho was laughing the whole time he was recounting the story. Said you got what you deserved. Why would he say that?”

 

Jonghyun closes his eyes. He thinks about his hand on Dongho’s wrist, dragging him away from Daehwi at half past two in the morning.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

Minhyun speaks slowly and deliberately, as if talking to a child. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two. It’s been very strange for the last month. You and Dongho are fighting—”

 

“We’re not fighting.”

 

“—you’re giving away all your parts—”

 

“It’s better for the teams that way.”

 

“And Seonho said—oh, it’s just been strange. Jonghyun. It’s like you don’t want to win.” Minhyun’s licks his lips and his gaze shifts side to side. “Do you not want to win?”

 

“I don’t—” Jonghyun swallows. “That’s not true. Of course I want to win.”

 

“I want you there with me.”

 

“It’s not for me or you to decide.”

 

An ambulance screeches by outside, its siren ripping through the room like a current and Minhyun rises from the bed again this time to close the window. In the sudden silence a muffled intimacy is born. 

 

“Yes it is. You have to decide because that’s the one thing that helps you in life the most. If you keep giving away your parts you’ll have no path left to walk. We should be able to make it, Jonghyun. You and me. Maybe Dongho, maybe Minki. But at least you and me. And if you don’t shine at the final performance because you’re not on camera enough—someone will take your place.”

 

“Don’t worry about me.”

 

“But if I don’t, who will?”

 

“Minhyun—”

 

Jonghyun’s head swarms with a buzzing sound and aches ferociously so he keeps swallowing, somehow excited and yet torally numb. Minhyun is waiting for him to say something and he is just useless. “You’ll be fine. You don’t need me there with you. You might even be better. Fly higher. Without me.”

 

Minhyun’s face is paler than it should be. His fingers twitch in his lap as if they itch to grasp onto something. “Why do you always think yourself a burden?”

 

“I haven’t helped you. I’ve—”

 

“Stop it,” Minhyun rubs his face. “I don’t know why you do this. I almost wasn’t going to say anything. But Seonho confessed his feelings to me. And he said—”

 

Outside the window Jonghyun can see two trees just starting to turn green with new leaves. Behind him Minhyun sits on the bunk and the weight of what Jonghyun wants to say is building in him but he doesn’t know how to say it and doesn’t want to. “And he said what?”

 

“Seonho said you told him to do it. He said that you’d told him I’d come around.”

 

Jonghyun’s tongue feels too big for his mouth. A part of him feels like he’s someone else, somewhere else looking in in this happening. A bug on the wall or a ball of dust in a corner. “What,” he croaks at Minhyun. “I just thought—he makes you smile. I thought you liked him.”

 

“I don’t. Not like that.”

 

Minhyun’s eyes are on him in a deep cavernous gaze and his mouth is thin and trembling. There are so many things wrong with the room and with the two of them in it. He settles his gaze on a spot on the wall behind Minhyun’s ear that looks like a hole. The kind of hole one makes when one digs a pencil into the plaster.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“What am I doing,” Jonghyun repeats. “I’ve had my chance. They’re just kids. They work just as hard if not harder. They should get their chance. I’ve had mine.”

 

“So you’re giving your parts to the younger ones because you think you don’t deserve a chance? You’re putting words in Seonho’s mouth because you don’t think you deserve a chance?”

 

“I don’t know,” Jonghyun trembles.

 

“Does everyone deserve something except you?”

 

“Maybe it’s because I—I just want to be bad at something for once. To not have this burden. I don’t know, Minhyun.”

 

Minhyun barks in laughter and it is sharp and brittle. “So it’s me—I’m the real burden to you.”

 

“You’re not a burden.”

 

“If I’m not that then what am I to you? Jonghyun. Look at me.”

 

“Yes. No.” Jonghyun’s head spins and spins. “Minhyun, I want you to be happy. I want you to be the happiest person in the world.”

 

“And I want you to be happy, too.” Minhyun’s fingers dig into the mattress. His knuckles are white. Jonghyun’s breath catches as he feels a truth being squeezed from him, wrung from a dark stain in his heart. “Jonghyun—”

 

“Don’t.” Jonghyun says. “Minhyun, please don’t make me tell you. Don’t make me tell you.”

 

Minhyun holds his gaze with a look so wet and expectant it sends Jonghyun babbling.

 

“Minhyun, don’t. I can’t. I can’t—it would. It would ruin everything.”

 

“What would be ruined?” Minhyun is leaning forward, almost falling off the edge of the mattress, almost so close, almost too close.

 

“Everything.” Jonghyun says. “Your career. Mine. Everyone else’s.”

 

“And that’s all there is?”

 

“Yes. That’s right. This is it. We’ve been working for this for almost ten years and this is something we love. I know you love Nu’est. I know you love the stage. I don’t want that taken from you. It’s for Dongho and Minki and Aaron and you that I can’t be selfish. If we don’t have Nu’est then I go back to the middle of nowhere and and and you go back to Busan and we will never see each other again and that’ll be it. Minhyun. We can’t. If we don’t have this then we don’t have anything.”

 

“Then we don’t have anything,” Minhyun laughs but it’s hurt and sad and Jonghyun wishes he had never been born. “Then we don’t have anything.”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

 

“You always mean what you say,” Minhyun turns his face away from Jonghyun so Jonghyun can’t see. “That’s the best thing about you.”

 

“Minhyun—”

 

“Let’s just forget about this. I’m sorry I pushed you. I only meant to see if you were all right. I’m sorry.”

 

Without waiting for Jonghyun’s reply, Minhyun leaves the room as suddenly as he came.

 

  
#

 

  
When he’s sure that Minhyun is safely down the hall Jonghyun laughs at this nauseous feeling in him. His laughter comes out sounding strange and twisted like his voice was put through a funhouse mirror. “God,” he says to no one. He reaches down below his bed for his toiletries bag and fumbles for the aspirin bottle, dry-swallows four, and shoves everything back under the bed. He goes to the bathroom, splashes water on his face and slaps it hard. His head pounds and he feels hot and terrible as though he’s inhaled a whole swimming pool. He grips the edge of the sink as if it can help him. Slowly he looks up at his reflection.

 

“Oh God.” In the mirror is a face that doesn’t look like his face. He bolts down the stairs and out to the track as fast as his legs will carry him.

 

The track near the dorms is deserted in the afternoon. The sun is beating down and the air is fizzing hot. His neck and cheeks flame and his shadow spills beneath him like spilled paint. The grass in the center of the track is brown, clumps of mud kicked up from football matches of a summer past now forming irregular patches. It’s hot but his hands are cold. Like they aren’t his own hands. Like his brain isn’t his own brain. It’s been a while since he’s gone for a run. It’s been a while since he’s been away from the cameras like this.

 

Just one foot in front of the other, that’s all he needs to do.

 

Left. Right. Left. Right.

 

He imagines that instead of running around in a lap, he’s running in a continuous straight line, one direction. By now, he would have reached the nearest town, an hour and a half away by car. Not even a town. Imagine the smallest town, then reduce it to a skeleton. Maybe it would be called a town, anyway. You could still buy clothes and groceries and gasoline. And if you had the urge to see other human beings, they would be there to be seen.

 

All winter long, the roads would be frozen and no cars would come through. Off the roads, it would be damp, the ground frosted over like sherbert. The kind of town that when it snows, you wouldn’t be able to tell what was and what wasn’t a road. The kind of landscape that might as well be the end of the world.

 

Air moves crisply through his lungs. Sweat runs down his face and something sour steams off of him. If a camera were to be pushed into his face now it might take him a few seconds to realize it’s a camera. Sure, he must have some kind of fundamental awareness that it’s a camera, but it wouldn’t get quite across to his immediate waking consciousness.

 

Left. Right. Left. Right.

 

On his fourth lap around the field, he realizes he left his phone and earbuds back in the dorms. He digs his hands into his pockets deeper just to double-check. He forgot everything.

 

Left. Right. Left. Right.

 

At the far end of the track he runs out of breath because his whole body has seized in one big cramp and is clenching him in and in. He sits down and then lies down mud be damned and stretches his arms overhead and his legs outward and pushes his chest up into the sun to try and get the air moving into his body. It all hurts like nothing has ever hurt before. His breaths come like the pitter-patter of raindrops on a tin roof right before a storm.

 

There is a sudden swell in his throat and then the sobs erupt from him like the sky opening wide to let out the rain. He’s panicking. He’s panicking and he laughs at himself for panicking because it’s ridiculous, because who comes out to the far end of the track to roll in the mud so they can cry into nothing but that’s him, and that’s what he’s doing.

 

There is no escaping this. Jonghyun looks deep into the sky blue with nothing in it as his breath shakes and squeezes in agonized gasps and he tells himself this too, will pass. That he just needs to hold on a little longer.

 

Just a little longer.

 

 

#

 

  
He remembered their first meeting, of course, the hesitant bows and their managers stewarding them and the first day of dance practice together where Minhyun’s lanky frame wouldn’t keep up with his feet and Jonghyun had to teach someone for the first time, it’s like this—left, right, left, right.

  
  
But it had been the certainty, the way it unfolded across Minhyun’s face as he told his story. That’s when it started. Jonghyun shuts his eyes to so many years ago, walking with his backpack down the concrete and asphalt weave of Gangnam, watching Minhyun step out of the car, pale neck and inscrutable face poking up from the stiff collar of his school uniform before they waved hello to each other and headed upstairs to the dance studio.

 

They had debuted at that point and their first album was selling decently. It was their tradition to go and get something cheap to eat at the market stalls after practice. They would load up on sticks of fish cake in paper cups and _twigim_ deep-fried by elderly ajummas and they would eat and talk and watch the shoppers pass by from their stoop. Today their stoop was a concrete planter with some kind of palm frond growing out of the middle, surrounded by orange and yellow geraniums.

 

For now the subject had turned to the topic of space and of the exploration of Mars rovers and if aliens really existed and what those aliens would look like. While Minki and Aaron tried to outdo each other with descriptions of fantastical appendages and Dongho couldn’t volunteer a single idea except that he thought they might be green because he had read about it somewhere before, Minhyun had been conspicuously silent.

 

“What do you think, Minhyun?” Jonghyun had said.

 

Minhyun swallowed his bite of fish cake before he spoke. “Actually, I’ve seen aliens before.”

 

Everyone stopped talking and turned to Minhyun who was at the far end of the concrete planter.

 

“You don’t mean foreigners, do you?” Minki quipped, and everyone laughed. Dongho was riveted and barking at Minhyun to quickly explain.

 

“I was a kid and I was on a walk in the forest. There were bright lights and a voice overhead speaking a language I’d never heard. I don’t know how long I was up there but then I was back in the forest. Then I went home.”

 

The interrogation began. “But why would your parents let you go walk in the forest alone?”

 

“They didn’t know I had gone.”

 

“That sounds like a dream.” Aaron said. “Maybe you fell asleep?”

 

“I did fall asleep. But it was while I was on the spaceship.”

 

“Well, what did they do to you? If you actually got abducted.” Aaron looked around and wiggled his eyebrows. “Steal your eyebrows?”

 

“Supersize your head?” Minki chimed in from the other end of the bench.

 

“And, and—” everyone turned to Dongho for the final punchline but he just burst into giggles instead. "I got nothin’.”

 

“Guys,” Minhyun shook his head and took another bite. Took his time to chew it thoroughly. “I don’t think they did anything to me physically. Everything still worked the same after they let me go. But I think psychologically, I was changed.”

 

“Hum,” said everyone in the group except Jonghyun, and they left it at that.

 

On their way back to the subway station Jonghyun lagged behind with Minhyun and said that it was a good story. Minhyun gave a secret little smile and said he didn’t make it up, but it was okay if nobody believed him.

 

“Do you really believe in aliens?”

 

Minhyun nods. “I was abducted, after all.” 

 

“But no one else believes you.”

 

“That’s all right,” Minhyun said. “Because I’m the only one who’s seen them. So that’s fair.”

 

“But aren’t you worried?” Jonghyun spluttered. “That people aren’t going to believe you? Or laugh at you?”

 

Minhyun’s gaze told him he was anything but. “Believing in aliens is like believing in a lot of things, right?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“A lot of people believe in things that other people don’t believe in. Think about all the religions there are in the world. Is it possible for all of them to be true? But that’s not the point. The point is what does each person believe for himself. As long as you don’t hurt others, I think you can believe anything you want.”

 

“You think your—belief in aliens is going to help others?”

 

Minhyun shook his head and laughed. “I think what they gave me was just the ability to believe in something regardless of what others think. As long as I remember how to do that, I’ll be okay.”

 

There was a crunch underfoot, and Minhyun stopped and made a face. He’d stepped on a snail.

 

“I’m going to feel bad about that for a while,” he sighed, and walked on.

 

Jonghyun thought that he had never met anyone like Minhyun before. The thought captured him over and over again.

 

In their early trainee days they were all together stuck like glue never moving one without the others, a bunch of skinny yellow caterpillars crawling into the thin chrysali of sheets night after night praying that the morning would make beautiful butterflies of them. Everybody looked at Nu’est and saw that Jonghyun was the leader, but it wasn’t Jonghyun who was the leader, it was JR. It was JR with his smolder and JR with his disdain and JR with his cool and that was what everyone followed. But JR was something that Jonghyun put on so that he could go on stage and not come apart. JR was only as real as the cameras were on and as the audience was watching.

 

But Minhyun was just himself, all the time. Jonghyun was jealous. He knew it wasn’t right to feel jealous so he tried to think instead that he was grateful.

 

Jonghyun’s jealousy and gratitude coexisted uneasily with one another and always he thought that he had never met anyone like Minhyun before and that he would have never if he had never left Gangwon-do and if Minhyun had never left Busan. Always he thought if one thing had gone differently in either of their lives then they would have never joined Pledis and never become friends. Always he thought that he would have to do better if only to show everyone he was worthy of being their leader and also to keep Minhyun in the group because for someone like Minhyun who was so one-of-a-kind he could go anywhere and do anything well.

 

Jonghyun’s jealousy and gratitude coexisted uneasily until one day he woke up to find that the feeling had transformed. The hours between practice and performance were strained by this fear, as if fear were a ghost or a brooding spirit or a strange bird that flew over the little town of Jonghyun’s mind with a shadow that would never wash. He didn’t know what he was afraid of, nor why he worried so much, nor why this thing borne from jealousy and gratitude that so easily caused panic felt like hope sometimes and brought with it such unreal joy, joy with a noose tied around it. The thud his heart gave him when he caught Minhyun looking at him smiling at him both terrified and thrilled him. He became afraid when Minhyun would loop an arm around him or say nice things about him and afraid when he didn’t.

 

The fear never went away. As if a switch had turned, Jonghyun had entered into a world where he woke up to it, watched it turn to anticipation when Minhyun emerged from the shower, watched it bloom into pleasure when Minhyun was waiting in the kitchen with breakfast for all of them, watched it curdle when Minhyun laughed at something someone else said, at something someone else did. It made Jonghyun hate himself for feeling so helpless, so thoroughly invisible, so smitten, so petty.

 

Just look me in the eyes and tell me you can’t live without me too, some desperate part of Jonghyun thought. Watch the tears well in my eyes when you look long enough.

 

What made him especially anxious were the weekends where Minhyun would go back home to Busan because some part of him believed that Minhyun would wake up and realize that Nu’est would never be anything and that Jonghyun was a nobody. And on those weekends where their apartment was empty Jonghyun would visit his parents and sisters back in Gangneung because there was no one else to see. Save for his father who said with the weight of the world on his shoulders you had been top of your class and now you are this, his mother and sisters navigated with care around the obvious topic of his career.

 

Jonghyun knew they were right to worry. He just hoped they would never know how far things stood beyond their ordinary worries. There was no one to speak to. Who could he tell?

 

One afternoon on one of these weekends, when he was sure the dorm was absolutely empty, he climbed into Minhyun’s bed. He had been here before but Minhyun had always been in it and it had always been to parent each other in the shadow of a nightmare. He found folded neatly under the pillow the t-shirt that Minhyun wore to sleep. And having never pried into anyone else’s personal belongings before Jonghyun memorized the way it was folded and then unwrapped it and brought it to his face. He rubbed his face on the inside of it as if trying to lose himself within the folds. So this is what his body smelled like at the end of the day, so this is what he smells like, this is what he smells like, Jonghyun kept saying to himself in wonder, looking inside the t-shirt for something even more than his smell and then kissing every corner of it, bringing the ribbing of the neck to his mouth and clamping his lips over it and feeling the heat in his body build to a fever pitch.

 

Without questioning he took off his shirt and put Minhyun’s on. He knew what he wanted and he wanted it with the kind of intoxicated rapture that could only come to him in the deserted hollow that was the Pledis dorm on a holiday weekend. Jonghyun unmade Minhyun’s bed. The smell of Minhyun was all around. Wholesome and forgiving, like how it was when Jonghyun was a child with the sand in his toes by the sea and the elderly vendor next to his parents’ snack shop would come place his hand on Jonghyun’s head and hand him an ice cream. Jonghyun put Minhyun’s pillow in his face and kissed it savagely, wrapping his legs around it, telling it what he had no courage to tell Minhyun or anyone else in the world. Told Minhyun’s pillow what he wanted. And when the secret left his body so did something else and Jonghyun breathed hard into the pillow and thought so what, so what, so what as he suffocated himself in Minhyun’s sheets and came into his hand.

 

 

#

 

  
It is JR who drives Jonghyun through the rest of the day through one more practice and an interview series and dinner. But after dinner, JR only walks him as far as Studio C before dropping him off like a mother driving her son to school. It’s okay, Jonghyun said to himself. It’s okay.

 

The room is dark but for a tiny green pinpoint light at the far end of the room that indicates a webcam is on. “Guys?” Jonghyun says, and to his relief it sounds playful.

 

The lights come on and Minki, Dongho, and Minhyun are there and Aaron is waving to him from an iPad sat on a chair. They say _surprise_ and start harmonizing _Happy Birthday_ together to hilariously dissonant effect, Aaron two seconds late with the lag in signal. From behind the podium Minhyun brings out a cake topped with two candles: “2” and “3”. And even though he can’t quite meet Dongho’s or Minhyun’s eyes, Jonghyun feels gratitude seep out from his bones.

 

When he blows out the candles, Dongho carefully slices the cake into five generous pieces with the plastic spatula provided by the bakery. He arranges them the best he can on the paper plates and Minhyun passes them around. Minki jabs a fork into the top of each one and then they all munch away.

 

Minhyun speaks up. “So, this is a birthday unlike other birthdays.”

 

“Hear hear,” says Aaron from the other side of the world.

 

“It’s almost the end of this show. We only have two more weeks to go. And it’s very likely that Jonghyun will make it into the final rankings and the rest of us won’t. This could be the last time we see Jonghyun for a long time.”

 

“Minhyun, you’re just as likely to get in.” Minki says, the same time that Dongho scowls, “do you really have to make this such a downer?”

 

“I’m not going to argue about the numbers,” Minhyun says. “Let’s take this moment to say something nice about our leader. It’s his birthday, after all.”

 

Minki sees that Dongho isn’t going to go first so he does. “Dear Jonghyun,” Minki starts. “You’ve steered us all the right ways. Even when we didn’t think we could do this, you never gave up. I’ve always been the youngest in our group but here on Produce 101 sometimes I’m the oldest. And I thought, what would Jonghyun do? I could be useful to the younger dongsaengs. I knew how to do that because I saw you do it. Happy birthday.”

 

“Thank you, Minki.” Jonghyun says.

 

“I’ll go next.” Dongho’s voice is gruff. “You never forget to remind us about what’s important. Especially when we need it. And even if you’re not the wisest leader at times—you’re the kindest. Not something I can say about myself. I’ve learned a lot from you too. Even when the lessons have been hard.”

 

“Thank you, Dongho.” And Jonghyun really is grateful.

 

“Happy birthday,” Dongho grins, and a dark cloud seems to depart the air.

 

“Is it my turn yet?” Aaron says through the static.

 

“Yes,” Minhyun says. “Go ahead, Aaron.”

 

“As the oldest. I just first want to say that you all know how much I care about stuff like that.”

 

Everybody laughs, because Aaron is American and has never cared for rank and hierarchies.

 

“I’ve been watching the show and all I can say is how relieved I am that the network is showing you this way. You’re one of the best guys I know, Jonghyun. In fact, you’re such a good guy that there’s no other way to edit you in post-pro.”

 

Minki side-eyes a pointed look at Dongho, who shifts in his seat. “What?”

 

Jonghyun laughs as Aaron cranes his neck on video. “Is that Dongho? Being an ass off camera? Dongho, stop being an ass off camera.”

 

“I’m not being an ass!”

 

“So anyway,” Aaron continues, “even if I’m not there with you guys I’m sure as hell proud to be in _New Establish Style Tempo_ and that’s thanks to you and everything you do for us. Happy birthday, man.”

 

It’s a relief to hear Aaron speak in his normal way with his normal cheer and it makes Jonghyun realize a little bit that for all the hell and intrigue that Produce 101 has squeezed from them, outside the world is turning as it usually does.

 

“My turn,” says Minhyun. Jonghyun’s hands twist by his sides.

 

“We already know that Jonghyun is a kind, patient, and hardworking leader,” he says. “And we all know how much of himself he puts into everything. What would our group be without him? What would any of us be without him?”

 

There is a deeply personal tremor in Minhyun’s voice and in Minhyun’s hands where they sit clenched on his lap. It makes Jonghyun look up, as if caught in headlights.

 

“I often think about who I might be if I hadn’t met Jonghyun. I do not think I would be quite as kind, or disciplined, courageous, or as devoted. I think if I hadn’t met Jonghyun I would have all right to be a normal person with a normal life but I wouldn’t have known how much one can be gracious in the face of terrible hardship. I wouldn’t have known how to smile even when I didn’t feel like it. I wouldn’t have ever learned how to be the kind of person that makes others happy or grateful for every day. I was selfish and scared and small when I joined Pledis. I don’t feel that way now.”

 

Jonghyun’s voice is a pale rasp of itself. “I’m not everything you think I am.”

 

“Because you’re more than that,” Minhyun turns his face to the side so his eyes can’t be seen. “Happy birthday, our Jonghyunnie.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was the hardest to write so far. Was pretty drained after doing this. In writing Jonghyun’s mental breakdown I had to break down myself. Hence, exhausting. “Will this kill him?” I asked myself multiple times. “Wait—will this kill _me?_ ”
> 
>  **Time to write** : 14 hours  
>  _Thanks to your support and feedback, I’ve been able to stay on track and publish a chapter once a week. If you enjoyed this chapter, please consider leaving comments or kudos; only two more chapters to finish strong! ❤️_


	7. The Manga Cafe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And yet, Minhyun has always been there.

  
  


Five months ago, in the winter: the manga cafe was about to close, and Jonghyun’s life was about to change forever.  
  
  
The shop owner came over to tell him they were closing soon. Jonghyun was almost halfway through the last volume of _Rurouni Kenshin_. And Jonghyun wasn’t in the habit of asking for anything or inconveniencing anybody, ever, really, but he was _halfway through the last volume_ and tomorrow he didn’t know how his life would change except that it would change big time. So he asked, politely, of course, if he could just stay a little while longer.  
  
  
The manga cafe was a place in Hwayang-dong, across the Yeongdong Bridge to the north of the Han River. Jonghyun went when he could. It was half an hour away from the Pledis office by metro and forty some minutes by bus. The front of the ground floor shop had a black and pink sign that said Tonight Manga Cafe which was misleading because it closed at 7pm except on Fridays and Saturdays when it was open until 10pm for the university students who congregated there. Jonghyun liked to visit on weekdays because it wasn’t crowded. He liked that it was a small and independently owned and had the books and the nooks for reading and a cafe in the back manned by a rotating cast of part-timers. One of them was there now, a college student with short hair and a clean look whose eyes would smile when Jonghyun visited. Normally Jonghyun would be friendlier but tonight was different, different for a big reason, and he didn’t want to talk to anyone. She left when her shift ended and the little bell above the door tinkled with her exit. Now it was just the owner in back office waiting for Jonghyun to finish the last of _Rurouni Kenshin Volume 28_.  
  
  
There was a blue booth against a blank wall in between two bookcases where Jonghyun liked to sit. From here he had a view of the front window and was safely tucked away from view of the cafe area. The glass was slightly tinted which made it hard for people outside to see inside but not the other way around. On sunny days, the light from outside would slice in and land in vertical strips across the bookshelves and the floor, illuminating the dust in the air. The books, baking in direct sunlight, would release their smell of ink and wood pulp, a smell that would hollow out Jonghyun’s lungs and transport him away, tucking him underneath a sand dune skyscraper-high on the cusp of a great ocean somewhere.  
  
  
It was darkening with twilight when the bell atop the entrance tinkled. The shop owner said that they were closed. There was the murmur of some voices and then Jonghyun felt a hand on his shoulder. From the weight and the squeeze and the fingers Jonghyun knew it was Minhyun. He shrugged it off. Busy, he shook his head. Rudest he’d been all week. He felt a little guilty but not enough to stop reading. Minhyun took a seat next to him on the blue booth, pulling the owl pillow up to his stomach. He didn’t pull out his phone but just waited until Jonghyun finally flipped to the last page and let loose the breath he’d been holding in.  
  
  
Jonghyun closed his eyes and let his head thump against the wall. Minhyun took his head and guided it gently to his shoulder.  
  
  
Was it good, Minhyun asked him. Jonghyun just nodded weakly in response. What was it about?  
  
  
He couldn’t think straight. The entire plot was one big mush at this point. He told Minhyun it was about a samurai. Minhyun asked if the samurai was the good guy or the bad guy.  
  
  
He’s a good guy, Jonghyun said. He was the good guy but he hadn’t always been. He’d killed many people in the past and so atoned for the hurt he had caused by fighting without a lethal blade. It was a reverse blade and had a blunt edge on the outside. The sharp edge was kept within.  
  
  
So he goes around saving people? Minhyun asked.  
  
  
He helps out those in need, Jonghyun nodded.  
  
  
Mm, Minhyun said, and it was quiet for a while. Sounds like someone I know.   
  
  
And, and. Jonghyun didn’t want to leave where they were right now. He knew Minhyun liked love stories too so he went on. Kenshin stays with a girl named Kaoru. She owns a dojo. They travel together far and wide across Japan. She falls in love with him.  
  
  
Ooh, Minhyun said. Jonghyun could hear the smile in his voice. Then what?  
  
  
Well, Jonghyun continued. He doesn’t think he deserves her.  
  
  
Until she gets kidnapped, right? And then he has to rescue her.  
  
  
Jonghyun liked that it was quiet in the manga cafe so he only pinched Minhyun lightly on the thigh. How did you know that.  
  
  
I watch a lot of period dramas. And Minhyun pinched him back.  
  
  
_If you don’t draw your sword, you’ll die_ , Jonghyun remembered someone saying. But he didn’t say anything more to Minhyun. He suspended himself delicately in Minhyun’s arm, careful not to lean in too much and yet careful not to pull away. In this in-between space where he didn’t have to choose one way or the other.  
  
  
They heard the owner cough pointedly. Turning both their heads he was looking at them from down the hallway and pointing at his watch. Jonghyun sat up straight and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep. Jonghyunnie, Minhyun said. I think it’s time for us to go.  
  
  
And so it was. Minhyun stood up and offered a hand. There was no need, but Jonghyun took it anyway. Minhyun squeezed his hand. Tomorrow they would be going to interview for spots in Season 2 of Produce 101.  
  
  
Tomorrow, Jonghyun’s life would change forever.  
  
  
The bell tinkled behind them as they left the manga cafe. Jonghyun didn’t know when he’d be back. If the worst happened and they didn’t get chosen for the show, he’d probably be back tomorrow because Nu’est would be over, really over. If the best happened and they all got into the final eleven and got to tour the world, then maybe he’d never be back because he’d finally be recognized everywhere and would never ever have any peace in his life again.  
  
  
Hyperbolic thinking maybe but it was possible.  
  
  
Jonghyun’s heart beat faster and faster and he tried to breathe slow to quell the shudder in his chest.  
  
  
Minhyun stopped walking so Jonghyun did too. Then he wrapped his arms around Jonghyun, tucking Jonghyun’s head against his chest. Minhyun was trembling, too. It’s okay, they both said to each other at the same time. Laughing as they said it because they’d said it at the same time. We’ll just work our hardest. It’s straightforward, at least, to work your hardest.  
  
  
Minhyun pressed his nose against Jonghyun’s neck and Jonghyun buried his face in Minhyun’s sweater, grateful for the twilight. To everyone passing by, they just looked like two people in the street. Just nobodies.  
  
  
Perhaps they’d have been better off born in feudal Japan. Minhyun would have been Prince So-and-so and Jonghyun Count Such-and-such. They would go hunting together, fight, be rivals in love, have metaphysical discussions deep into the night, read Bashō over sake from the verandah under the light of the full moon, waited on by a faction of silent attendants. In their later years, the two of them would be implicated in the Something-or-other Rebellion and would be exiled to Hachijō-jima, where they’d die.  
  
  
The tatami mats would be sumptuous and fragrant and the night, clear and cool. Warming his hands around a cup of hot sake, the Count would begin:  
  
  
_Monks’ feet clomping_  
_Through icy dark,_  
_Drawing sweet water._  
  
  
The Prince would answer:  
  
  
_Spring moon—_  
_flower face_  
_in mist._  
  
  
Do you know what I’m planning to do for my audition, Minhyun murmured into Jonghyun’s ear. Jonghyun shook his head.  
  
  
Minhyun stepped back. Looked at Jonghyun most seriously with inky black eyes even more inky in the dying light of the day. He spread his arms overhead and started to swing his hips side to side to the march of an invisible tempo. Face beaming with an expression of indulgent rapture, bottom lip bit.  
  
  
Minhyun shuffled and wiggled but it wasn’t until he executed the full turn that Jonghyun finally doubled over in laughter.  
  
  
Behind them, the lights of the manga cafe went off one by one.  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy birthday @perkybird! You know this one has been waiting in the wings but it is for you on your special day. 
> 
> Sorry this chapter has been so late in coming. It’s been a real brain teaser to figure out how to get this all writ in a way that makes sense and goes the way I want it to go. Thanks for sticking with the story and for hanging in there. 
> 
> **Time to write:** 3 hours  
>  _If you enjoyed this chapter please consider leaving a comment or kudos! It is every writer’s fuel ❤️_


	8. The Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don’t ask, don’t tell.

 

  
Summer has come this year with the suddenness of a bird suddenly dropping a load on your face.

Oh Minki, that’s absurd, they’ll tell you. So you scribble it out of your journal and try again.

Summer comes this year with the abruptness of a crow landing on a power line and getting electrocuted.

That’s still not quite right, either.

  
#

  
Your mother told you once upon a time that everyone had something they could do to make the world a better place.

Looking at Kim Jonghyun’s ashen face right now you wish you had said something to stop the boys from going so far. This was your leader, after all. The one who had suffered with you for all these years. Who had never ever said an unkind word. Who, for as long as you could remember, had just worked hard and kept his head down when he needed to and kept it high when he needed to.

Maybe if you were more of a man, you’d actually feel angry at this treatment, but all you feel is panicked and vaguely lost. Who has the right to do this to your leader? Certainly not you. Is this really okay?

Oh god, Minhyun was going to kill you when he found out.

It was Jonghyun’s birthday today. The _Super Hot_ group was recording in the studio today. It was Lee Daehwi’s brainchild and somehow it had started off more or less harmlessly—let’s just make Jonghyun think he’s making lots of mistakes while recording, and then surprise him with a birthday cake after—but somehow Dongho had latched onto the idea as much as he had latched onto everything else about Lee Daehwi (don’t think that had escaped Minki’s notice, don’t think that at all)—and had said, yeah, let’s make it really hard, really hard for him—and then everyone who had been ridden hard by Jonghyun one time or another for slipped-up footwork or fumbled-over lyrics or less-than-stellar timing had latched on, and they were off.

“Do it again.”

Jonghyun nodded and try his rap verse again.

“What are you doing? Wake up. Seriously, Jonghyun. Wake up. Do you think this is acceptable?”

And again Jonghyun would nod and try again. Dongho could barely contain his giggles and you knew he was an ass and had only grown more so over time, but you wondered if the thing between Dongho and Jonghyun of which Lee Daehwi was the cause had been resolved yet.

Apparently not.

This went on for far too long—you dying a little inside while picking at your thumbnails because Minhyun was going to have your head, Dongho’s head, and everyone else’s head after this—the producer calling Jonghyun in and out of the recording room with bitingly unkind words and denigrations of his so-called near decade of experience (a sting that stung you just as bad) until it was revealed that the prank was a prank.

“Happy birthday, Jonghyun!” went the boys and you said it as loudly as you could with as much love as you could as if that could undo the cruelty. Jonghyun’s face flashed red and then white until it crumpled from agony into shame and relief. The room burst into laughter infected with the same feeling. Only Dongho giggled next to you greatly genuinely chuffed.

Which brought you here now with you on your knees in the corner hugging Jonghyun’s shoulders which were quaking with shame and relief.

“Jonghyun,” you whispered. The cameraman edged into your view and you knew if it were Minhyun it would be all ice daggers right now. But you weren’t Minhyun and you weren’t made of ice so you just tried your best to shield Jonghyun from the wandering and wondering glass eye.

“Ah,” Jonghyun croaked, tipping his head back to try and re-absorb his tears. But they came flowing freely anyway. You have all cried to each other. You should be used to it now. But it hurts anyway.

Dongho’s giggles bloom into laughter. He stooped down and smacked Jonghyun’s back resoundingly. “Guess this makes us even,” he said.

Timing was not Dongho’s strong suit. You came close to pushing him from his crouch so he would wind up on his ass but the camera was still there and so you refrained. Minhyun was going to kill you both when he found out about this, anyway.

  
#

  
“So where is he?”

Minhyun had stood up immediately, his hands on the edge of the table, white-knuckled. He’d noticed that Jonghyun wasn’t with you when you came down to the canteen for lunch and a few bites in he had asked in a good-natured way if Jonghyun would join later. Which had made you spill the beans. In a breathless rush to Minhyun’s increasingly pale face and the increasing tension of the tablemates in his immediate vicinity, you told him what happened.

“He said he was going to his room to change,” you said. Your food looked lifeless and stale on your tray.

“How’s he doing?” Minhyun’s voice was steely.

“Ah, he’ll be fine,” Dongho‘s put his soda down with a little more force than necessary. But Minhyun was already off.

Okay, so nothing yet. No killing of Minki and Dongho just yet. But that didn’t mean Minki didn’t feel like hell warmed over.

  
#

It would be natural that one of you would fall in love with the other. After spending so much time together it was like you were family. But since you weren’t family, the closeness ran together like colors in the wash.

You all loved each other, of course. All trainees in the same group did. How did you show your love? Well, you used your words and Dongho used what was unsaid and Aron made you all laugh. Minhyun used his actions and Jonghyun did too and that’s why while they never said anything and never had done anything (you think), all of the touching and looking and longing and stopping mid-sentence to say one thing instead of the other made it all terribly obvious. Sometimes you acted like an airhead but it didn’t mean you didn’t know love when you saw it.

Nu’est had many open secrets and this one was one of them.

You, like many other girls and boys in the world, had loved Jonghyun once too. It caused you some pain because you were a little infatuated with him early on and you would throw yourself at him. It was all a little embarrassing but he handled it with grace and without rejecting you outright. Your burgeoning sense of professionalism had also managed to kick in before you were eighteen, so that helped too. But what finally killed your crush was when you realized it was JR you liked, his swagger and his walk and his attitude and not actually Kim Jonghyun.

So that was the end of that.

Minhyun wouldn’t be quite so lucky, though. It was Jonghyun that he loved, that he doted on, that he snuck food to, that his eyes were for, that he worried after, that he tucked in, that he crawled into bed with, that he listened to, that he spoke to, with more kindness and honesty and realness than you’d ever seen him do with anyone else.

You wondered what they were talking about now.

  
#

 

It was nearing the end of the day. You found Dongho sitting on the steps outside, watching the sun set. You took a seat next to him.

“What did you need to get even for? With Jonghyun?”

Dongho answered your question with a shake of his head.

The last time you found him here, you passed a pack of mango pocky back and forth until the darkness outside was consummate and your eyes hurt from looking too long at the glare of the flouro street lights down the road. He had been stuck out there for a while like a worm after the rain that didn’t know how to come off the sidewalk. You knew Dongho had been sullen over something that involved Lee Daehwi but you didn’t want to ask then. Open secrets and all.

Which is why it surprised you when Dongho said what he did.

“They should just be clear with each other,” Dongho said. The way he said it, he might as well have been talking to himself.

You sigh. “Easier said than done.”

When you were all trainees—real trainees, just barely out of your teens—you’d wake from your bad dream and seek refuge in each other’s beds. Jonghyun would tuck in with Minhyun and vice versa. It had been that way for months and months until your manager caught on and divided you into two different rooms.

Then there was that one night in Tokyo. You were sharing with Aaron and Dongho because Jonghyun and Minhyun had wanted to watch some anime late into the night. You remembered how they had looked when they had asked you to leave the room. You remembered the mood, how thick the tension and the anticipation had been. You knew what you were supposed to do. You made it easy for them: packing up your toiletries, you had gone to the other room without a fuss or without any teasing. It was the kind thing to do, to make their day.

You hoped. After that night things had become tense between them for a while. You supposed that they had talked through whatever it was. You supposed a lot of things. Open secrets, though: no-one asked, and no one told.

Dongho’s voice spun you from the memory. “It gets annoying watching them trip around each other like that.”

Love was a separate dimension of its own, unbounded by time and space. The success of a confession: the human expression of the divine entity known as love, was dependent on the time, the place, the level of humidity in the air, what one had eaten for dinner that night.

“Well, maybe the timing isn’t right.”

“Hah,” Dongho laughed. The sound of it cut your ears in an unpleasant way. “It never seems to be, for us.”

“Well,” you started, but then you realized that you didn’t have anything to say.  
  
  
#

  
Everyone was dealing with their own things. Aaron affected a bright manner when you called him every week or so but you could tell from his skin that he’d been staying up late and was not eating very well. Dongho, with his father in a hospital in Jeju, his father gone any day now, had broken out in stress. His skin had taken on a jaundiced pallor that was covered by the makeup artists with layers of foundation. And Jonghyun with his stooped shoulders, bearing the weight of something far away, looked like he was just about to lay in for a sleep he’d never wake up from.

Minhyun felt like the strongest one of you all. But even he was suffering.

Sometimes you wondered why it wasn’t Minhyun who was the leader, but then you realized that Minhyun wasn’t a leader so much as a foundational element. Less of an architect or a construction manager, moreso the raw materials of a house. Minhyun wasn’t filled with an ache to prove himself nor did he possess an innate ambition to be a leader of men. He was content to follow, to clean up, to make sure that no-one was left behind.

You suppose that it would be natural that Jonghyun and Minhyun would find each other. A captain and his lieutenant. It did feel like that.

  
#

 

Later you found Minhyun eating alone, early bird, old man style. You had gotten hungry and so had come out to the canteen for a quick bite. Minhyun was already halfway done with his meal. The dark circles under his eyes were just that. Dark.

“Hey,” you said. “Want to take a walk outside?” Minhyun looked like he needed it.

When you got outside, Minhyun finally let out the breath he’d been carrying all day.

“It’s not always on you or Jonghyun to be strong,” you said. “You can tell me what’s on your mind, you know.”

Minhyun took a breath as if to say something, but then shook his head and gave you a watery smile. Your heart sank a little.

“Did you manage to talk some sense into him?” You tried to lighten the mood. “If he’s blaming himself for what happened, he’s an idiot.”

“That’s just him,” Minhyun said. “You know that’s just him.”

 _And you love him anyway_ , you thought. _Well, we all do._

You walked in lockstep. Your sneakers made crunching noises on the gravel. The pebbles clicked against each other. It had rained yesterday, a hot summer storm that had felt good to listen to.

Eventually, as it always did, your footing came into alignment. Left, right, left, right.

  
#

  
Summer comes this year. Same way it always does. You don’t know what will come of this particular summer, a summer so unlike the rest. But it’ll be over before you know it, and then you’ll know.

Life is just waiting for things to become obvious. One open secret revealed after the other.

 

 


	9. The Light

 

 

 

As they lay on the bed, he knew he’d always remember Minhyun like this: eyes aglow by the TV, blue streaks across his cheekbones. It was two in the morning.

The wave of needing to know had brought Jonghyun here. What remained was him at its crest, desperately happy and abjectly terrified, his hand reaching out for Minhyun at 2am in Tokyo. The latest he’d ever stayed up, the furthest he’d ever been from home. It was a moment he’d been waiting for. Jonghyun was smiling so hard it felt like his face would break open and let out the light inside. 

  
#

  
Like many people who saw Hwang Minhyun in full makeup and styling for the first time, Jonghyun too caught himself looking too long.

It was on the set for their first music video and Minhyun, dressed in some kind of black mesh turtleneck outfit with his pale skin and kohl-rimmed eyes and sideswept hair, looked like he was visiting from another planet. Where was the clean-cut trainee who was all smiles and wore t-shirts and smelled like fresh laundry?

During Minhyun’s close-ups the rest of them waited on the sidelines while the cameramen panned around Minhyun. Jonghyun sucked absently on a bottle of water and wondered what Minhyun was thinking as he made that face for the camera. There was something about his pose—his head tipped back, eyes narrowed, lips slightly parted—that made Jonghyun feel like he hadn’t really lived. Not yet, anyway.  
  
  
#  
  
  
They began Japanese lessons in preparation for their first show in Japan. From his near-encyclopedic knowledge of anime and his devotion to how things should be, Jonghyun already had a working grasp of elementary phrases. That said, their Japanese tutor had pointed out to him something he’d known for a long time.

“Jonghyun-ah,” their tutor tried not to laugh, “you can’t speak that way. It’s much too forceful.”

“You sound like an anime character,” Minki giggled. Aaron asked, deadpan, if he was done charging up his fireballs yet.

If Jonghyun spoke Japanese like every protagonist out of every shounen anime, then Minhyun spoke it like every love interest out of every shoujo series about endlessly reincarnating soulmates. And if Jonghyun was partial to text messages autocorrected to yield his intent just fine, there was an arcane part of him that appreciated the crisp lines and chummy curves of Minhyun’s hiragana.

Minhyun had a way of making difficult things seem easy and relaxed. In moments where Jonghyun felt himself lacking, it became easy to take cues from his friend. Despite self-imposed warnings, he found himself copying Minhyun’s handwriting, preferring its elegance to his own chunky, effortful pen strokes, his own clumsiness.

Like when Japanese lessons had become hard and routine, Minhyun had suggested that they all start watching anime movies together to test themselves on their new language skills. Minhyun and Jonghyun would often stay up the latest after everyone else had gone to bed, and in this way, they carved out a new space to be together. They would discuss plots and their reactions in fumbled Japanese.

That night, they watched a romantic comedy at Minhyun’s request. The dorm common space was littered with trash and as the others trickled out of the room, Minhyun began to tidy up.

“We can leave it for morning, Minhyun.” Jonghyun stifled a yawn.  
  
“I don’t want to leave a mess for later,” Minhyun said. And a mess it was indeed: ramyeon noodle cups and chopsticks stained red, sticky candy wrappers, half-full soda cans, plastic bottles, crumbs, chicken bones, smudged napkins strewn on the coffee table in front of the television screen. Watching Minhyun clean up, Jonghyun felt guilty. He knelt down to help sort the trash from the recycling.

“I like the movie you picked,” Jonghyun said. “How did you hear about it?”

“My sister watched it with one of her friends,” Minhyun said. “And then she watched some of it with me. I wanted to watch some more of it with you.”

“You've gotten closer with her?”

“No, that's not it,” Minhyun’s nose wrinkled. “But she told me one of the characters was just like me.”

“You don’t mean S?” S was the main character’s best friend, always helping him out of miscommuniques and listening to his struggles. Jonghyun could see the resemblance.

“Yep, that one.” Minhyun scrubbed at an oil drop on the table with a napkin. “She said I’m cold, like S. That my expectations are too high.”

For their closeness, the group never talked that much about girls. What type they liked, which singers or idols they thought were cute. Something in Minhyun’s tone made Jonghyun curious, and while he didn’t want to pry, the way Minhyun looked now—relaxed, smiling, in his element (tidying)—made it seem as though he wouldn’t oppose further inquiry.

“And are they?”

“Are they what?”

“Are your standards high.”

Minhyun mulled this over an empty can of soda, as if he’d forgotten whether to sort it into waste or recyclables. “I don’t think it’s higher or lower than anyone else’s. I would like to be with a person who is kind and intelligent. Wouldn’t you?”

“I guess so. But I think I could tolerate someone messy better than you could.”

This earned a laugh from Minhyun. A nice sound made nicer because it was just the two of them and because they were speaking in low tones so as not to disturb the others. In the light of Jonghyun’s computer screen, they both looked like they were from other worlds.

“Have you had a girlfriend before?” Minhyun asked, as they tied knots around the plastic bags and carried the trash to the kitchen. “I won’t tell the producers if you have.”

He spoke in a tone that invited confidences to unfold. Jonghyun felt a shiver swim up his spine. “No. Have you?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“We went out before I joined Pledis,” Minhyun said. “My friends set us up. We were in the same school, but different classes. We only held hands... once. That’s why I said ‘maybe.’ I think you’re supposed to do more for it to count as a girlfriend.”

“Well, that’s more than I’ve done.”

“You’ve never kissed a girl?”

“I’ve never even had a girlfriend,” Jonghyun said. “How could I kiss someone if she’s not my girlfriend?”

“Easy enough. Like this,” Minhyun closed his eyes, puckered his lips, and blew a kiss into the air. Jonghyun laughed in surprise.

“Pretty sure that doesn’t count.”

“A kiss is a kiss,” Minhyun said rather seriously.

Jonghyun laughed again, if only to lighten the mood. “Your sister was wrong about you. Hwang Minhyun is a red-blooded guy who will kiss anybody.”

“Not just anyone,” Minhyun sighed. “I have high standards, remember?”

They got ready for bed in a hurry because it was late and they had a whole day off tomorrow. Jonghyun knew it was silly but he couldn’t fall asleep right away because he was excited. For whatever reason.

He waited until Minhyun settled under the covers of his bed, until there was only the sound of breath in their room. He wondered if he should say goodnight. Maybe Minhyun had already fallen asleep.

“Minhyun,” he whispered.

“Yes?”

“ _Oyasuminasai_.”

“ _Oyasuminasai_ , Jonghyunnie.”

  
#

  
The next morning it was Minki who shook him out of his stupor. He didn’t want lunch, though, and told Minki as much. Sleep—and a delicious dream—clung to him. Its inky tendrils still wrapped around his brain not wanting to let go.

Jonghyun woke again in the afternoon and fried himself three eggs in the empty dorm. He played his mobile game for a while and when the sun started to glow orange through the windows and the other members still had not returned he began to wonder where everyone had gone. There were no texts on his phone.

He loaded up the sequel to the movie they had seen last night and watched it while sucking down a cola. It was getting past 6pm when the movie finished. The others still hadn’t returned. Jonghyun felt sticky and fidgety from the soda and he jumped when his phone buzzed. It was a text to the family group chat. His middle sister wishing their father a Happy Birthday.

Jonghyun chugged the rest of the soda which was lukewarm at this point. He needed some fresh air.

Outside was no better than inside. Late spring felt like summer and he was sweating before he got a block to the convenience store. At the GS25 he got two bottles of sports drink and a discounted cream bun. He walked a block to sit on the stoop of Pledis where he finished one bottle of sports drink. The chilled salt made him feel a little better.

Weekends were empty at Pledis, as expected. He waved hello to the security guard as he flashed his badge. He got an indifferent nod in return. The hallway lights were turned off to conserve energy. Jonghyun didn’t know where to go so he walked up to the studio space on the fourth floor. It was cavernous with just him in it. And even though it wasn’t the reason he wandered up here, he hooked his phone into the sound system and began to run through the choreography for Face.

It was easy enough. He hummed the others’ parts and muttered his lines under his breath. The next song came on and he ran through that too. The burn in his muscles felt good and familiar. He liked dancing on his own when he remembered that it made him forget everything else. The sun was going down quickly but dancing in the dim was like drifting into another dimension. He closed his eyes to let it suck him in.

He was properly out of breath when his phone rang, bright jingle cutting through the stream of music. He picked up the call, wiping his sweat with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Mom,” he said.

“Jonghyun-ah,” she said. “Where are you?”

“Studio.”

“Are the other boys with you?”

“It’s just me.”

“By yourself.” She t’ched. “My son. You work so hard.”

“Not really, mom.” He squirmed. “What’s up?”

“Did you forget about your father’s birthday?”

“No. Just been busy today.”

“I always have to call you now.”

“Ma.”

“You should call home at least once a week.”

“We’re talking now, aren’t we?”

The way she went quiet at the other end of the line made Jonghyun feel as guilty as he had earlier in the day when he woke up much too late. How was it that one minute of speaking with his mother could undo the precarious peace of mind he had built up over the course of the day?

“I’m your mother.”

Right. That was why.

“I’m sorry,” he said, worrying at the skin on his thumbs.

“I’m doing you a favor. Calling you. If we waited for you to call it would be another episode with your father. Here he is.” Her voice grew sunny, bright, in a snap. “Talk to him. Jonghyun-appa, it’s your son.”

“Jonghyun.” His father’s voice, warm with affection. Jonghyun’s palms went wet. He curled up in a tighter little ball, trying to blend in with the shadows against the wall.

He swallowed. “Happy birthday, dad.”

“How are you? Are you working hard?”

Jonghyun’s father brought them all up with music in the home. The TV was always on and if the TV wasn’t on, then it was the radio. One or the other. From the revolving door of uncles that stopped by now and then it seemed that his father had been well-known in his youth. The uncles that got together to drink from time to time would egg on Jonghyun’s father and they would sing late into the night, harmonizing perfectly.

“I just finished practicing,” Jonghyun said, and changed the subject. “Did you do anything with mom? Any plans?”

“Your mom is cooking something nice tonight.”

“That’s good,” Jonghyun said. He felt useless that he couldn’t say anything better, more clever, more easily. “Mom’s cooking is the best.”

“That’s right.” His father took a breath, as if to ask him more questions, but Jonghyun cut him off.

“Is noona there?” His eldest sister always went home for their parents’ special occasions. She’d wanted Jonghyun to come back this weekend, but he said he couldn’t. His heart beat loudly in his head. It was this weekend that he’d be able to spend time with the others.

With Minhyun.

“Let me find her.”

“Wait—dad.”

In the silence, Jonghyun could hear the sound of the television. Some commercial for skincare. Mixed in with that, the sound of cooking. Something hissing and popping, being fried. Both of the sounds made him sad and yearning. He took a deep breath. Man up, Kim Jonghyun.

“There was a form the company sent a few weeks ago.”

“By mail?”

“E-mail. There’s a waiver in there the parents have to sign. We have some travel coming up and I need to turn in the form before I can go.”

“Where are you going?”

“It’s a general form for travel around Korea. And our overseas schedules. A lot of idol groups do concerts in Vietnam, Thailand. Sometimes China. And Japan.”

“You’re going to Japan?” His father laughed in delight. “ _Sugoi!_ ”

Jonghyun balked in surprise. “Dad, do you speak Japanese?”

“ _Mochiron_ ,” his father huffed. He sounded proud of himself. The sound of it warmed Jonghyun’s ears. “Remember, your dad almost became a singer. What I didn’t tell you is that I even had the chance to go to Japan. The band had saved up enough money. But then I met your mother, and that was that. _Sou desu ne_.”

Jonghyun’s head went blank. “You met mother?”

“Yes,” his father said. “And then we had your sister very shortly after. My fault, I suppose. Your dad gets excited when good things happen.” His voice was warm. But Jonghyun’s hands had gone cold around the phone. He wanted to ask about the liability waiver but the cheap sugar from the discount pastry and the soda and the sports drink had puckered his mouth shut.

“Oh—here’s your sister. She wants to talk to you.”  
  
She took the phone with a chipper “Jonghyun-ah” and filled the buzzed-out space in Jonghyun’s head with anecdotes about her cat and what they were making for dinner. He slogged back to the dorms still on edge. There, Minhyun and the others had returned, gathered around the low table nursing empty containers of take-out.

“You’re back!” Minki said.

“We got you some food, too. Don’t worry.” Minhyun pointed at a pile of styrofoam containers.

“Were you exercising?” Dongho asked.

“Gonna shower,” Jonghyun mumbled.

“Bro,” he heard Aaron murmur. “That’s intense.”

Jonghyun headed straight for the bathroom. When he finished he slid on a clean pair of boxers before sinking into bed. Turning to the wall, he flicked through his phone.

There was a knock on the door. It was Minhyun.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jonghyun said. “Just tired.”

“We missed you today. Minki said you were really sleepy, so we wanted to let you rest.”

“Where’d you guys go?”

“Just to town. We met up with some friends. A few even took the train from Busan to come visit.”

“Like your girlfriend?” Jonghyun bit back his tongue right after he said it.

Minhyun hummed in surprised. “She—I haven’t spoken to her in a year. We just sang some karaoke and talked. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss much.”

“Sure.” Jonghyun felt exposed. Too exposed. He found his pajama t-shirt under his pillow and shrugged it on. Minhyun took a seat at the foot of his bed.

“Did you already eat?” Minhyun asked.

Jonghyun shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Did you eat anything today?” Minhyun’s voice was suddenly stern.

“Sure. Food,” Jonghyun said sullenly.

“Well, you should eat a real meal. Lucky for you someone thought to bring you back something.”

“Thank you,” Jonghyun said, trying not to sound sarcastic, trying not to sound defensive. Because he was grateful, he really was. He didn’t deserve this.

“No more words from you,” Minhyun said. His hair hung low over his eyes. The cupid’s bow above his lips was moist. He must have licked his lips while he had been eating. He put a warm hand on Jonghyun’s arm, grip strong for such slim fingers. Insistence tugged at Jonghyun’s heart. But he didn’t deserve any of it.

“Let’s get you some food,” Minhyun said.

  
#

  
Minhyun really was going to be better than all of them someday, and it would be Jonghyun who would have to find a way, any way, to keep afloat. It was the kind of dangerous thought that had no place in his life as a leader, especially one who should be unbiased and fair and neutral, but the thought captured him over and over again. 

The way Minhyun took direction from the trainers, earnestly and yet without an ounce of desperation—the way he absorbed the concepts, the way he sang, how naturally it all seemed to come, how humble he remained despite how good he was.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t see that Minhyun was working hard. Obviously they could see it. They all sweated through training together and they all helped each other and even when Jonghyun found himself stretched thin on patience he would only have to look over and see Minhyun’s face in the mirror, calm and forgiving, to remember how he should be.

“Like this,” he turned back to Dongho, who was struggling to follow the footwork.

“You said we’d go on break,” Dongho cast a surly glance at Jonghyun’s reflection in the mirror.

“Just once more,” Jonghyun said. “Like this.”

Afterwards, while laying on the floor panting for breath, Minhyun kneeled down and poured water into Jonghyun’s mouth.

“You’ve worked hard,” he murmured. The water ran down his throat cool and clear. It felt like Minhyun’s soul had entered him. Jonghyun closed his eyes in pleasure.

“What about me,” Dongho whined.

“You too, you too.” And Minhyun scooted over to do the same for Dongho. Jonghyun could hear the drip of water in Dongho’s mouth. He kept his eyes closed and pretended that Minhyun was doing it for him again.

He found that once he started thinking this way, he couldn’t stop.

  
#

  
One dawn he opened his eyes to find Minhyun on the edge of his bed, lips parted and eyes closed, dozing. A pale blue light streamed through the blinds and faint sounds of the other members’ snoring reverberated off the walls. Minhyun peeled open an eye and reached over, pulling Jonghyun into his arms.

“Can’t sleep?” Minhyun murmured into his hair.

Jonghyun shook his head.

“Well, try.”

Jonghyun couldn’t. He didn’t want to move but he was tense even though sleepiness weighed on him like a dense fog.

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” he whispered. “I feel—restless, I guess.” Jonghyun scratched his scalp again, enjoying the sensation. Maybe he needed a massage.

“Should we get up, then?”

Minhyun pulled away slightly and smiled at Jonghyun—why did his innocent suggestion sound not-so-innocent? And then Jonghyun caught a gleam from Minhyun’s eye and wondered how innocent he was. He closed his mouth, swallowing his reply, and studied him.

A very handsome boy. Taller than Jonghyun. He moved gracefully. He worked hard and never complained and was always there. Someone Jonghyun could trust with his life. A teammate, he reminded himself, maybe like a brother, maybe like someone he had met a long time ago, someone he had been with all his life in every life. Jonghyun blushed at the sentimental thought.

“What is it?” Minhyun said gently.

“Nothing,” Jonghyun lied.

He remembered Minhyun holding his hand, Minhyun’s arm around his shoulder, how comforting it was. The night before their debut stage, how they’d embraced, warm and safe. After the stage, Minhyun had unzipped him from his stage costume in time for the next performance. The motion, unembarrassed and reassuring. 

Jonghyun swallowed, and watched Minhyun watch his throat. When he took a deep breath, his eyes closed, and when he opened them again, Jonghyun shuddered at the way Minhyun was looking at him now. “What’s happening?” he whispered.

“Whatever you want, Jonghyunnie,” Minhyun said in a soft voice. Jonghyun wondered how long Minhyun had been waiting.

“Really?” Jonghyun asked, and Minhyun nodded. Emboldened by some dazed feeling he leaned up and lightly kissed him, paused, and then kissed him again, a little more insistently.

“Are you sure, Jonghyun?”

“I—...” What? What did he want? Jonghyun didn’t know. Everything was happening too fast, even though it had been happening for years past and would happen for years into the future. He didn’t know whether to run away, laugh, weep, or kiss him again. Jonghyun took another deep breath, and smelled that soft comforting scent he knew in his bones. This was Hwang Minhyun, with whom he’d shared a life for years. Minhyun, who had watched him stumble as a leader, who’d always stood by his side, who had waited for him to figure himself out.

“I’m sure,” Jonghyun said, and kissed him. This time, Minhyun kissed him back, and Jonghyun fell into their kisses, pressing against him, then hooking a leg over Minhyun’s hip and rolling so that he could be pinned under Minhyun’s weight. He felt swollen and sensitive, and he could feel Minhyun’s erection pressing into him. Jonghyun gave an experimental wiggle and Minhyun groaned into his mouth.

Would they become lovers? Would they spend the rest of their lives together? Would they be caught one day, would his father and mother ever approve, would Nu’est be broken because of them, would the world end because of them?

Jonghyun didn’t know. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be held and kissed and touched and fucked. Jonghyun hitched forward against Minhyun’s lap and wrapped his legs more tightly around him, and rubbed against him until they both gasped. “Minhyun, Minhyun,” he moaned, and he kissed Minhyun’s name into Minhyun’s mouth. Minhyun bunched Jonghyun’s t-shirt up his chest and snuck his hands under his back to pull him closer.

“Yes,” Jonghyun whispered, hands crawling under Minhyun’s t-shirt to grasp at his back. Yes, he wanted him, he loved him, yes, he would stay with him. This time, Jonghyun was getting it right. This time, Jonghyun knew. The universe would forgive him if it already gave him with stunning clarity who and what he wanted. “Oh,” he cried as Minhyun palmed him through his shorts. Hands warm and gentle, body hard and insistent. Jonghyun opened to him as the crowds had opened for them at their debut, offering the universe to them, offering his universe to Minhyun. 

“I love you,” Jonghyun whispered, and then they came the both of them shuddering, and then Minhyun slid off him with a sigh and off the sheets with a rustle and off the bed with a thud and when Jonghyun looked over the bed there was nothing but a gaping black space—

_Fuck._

His eyes opened. It was a dream.

The sun bled in cruel strips of yellow daylight through the blinds. It was just Jonghyun and his hand, eyes gummy with sleep and sheets gummy with spunk, becoming sharply aware of his own shame and relief running in sharp hot-cold parallels second by second. On the other side of the bedroom, Minhyun’s back facing him, gauzy white t-shirt over his shoulder blades, the bane of Jonghyun’s every existence.

Dongho snorted in his sleep, and Jonghyun sprung from his bed and stripped the sheets in a quiet fury. Arms full of the smell of his own stuff he scurried down to the basement where the laundry room was.

The washing machine looked like something from before Jonghyun was born. A thin aluminum number with the white gone sallow in the years, a warped lid dented in the middle as if someone had sat on it too suddenly. The smell of something humanly sweet and sour coming from deep within its metal guts, masked by the fragrance of laundry detergent. In went the sheets. For an hour of that miserable afternoon he listened to the machine slosh and whirl and erase the evidence of his shame. When it spat out the half-dry twist of white bedding he ran up as quickly as he’d run down, strung them to dry in their dorm, and prayed for his heart to stop beating so damn hard.

  
#

  
A few weeks later their group was separated into two rooms. Jonghyun was to room with Aaron while Minhyun, Minki, and Dongho were in another. In some superstitious part of his heart Jonghyun was sure it was because the cleaning lady knew what happened and had told his manager. He was sure that it only been some act of mercy that he was not discharged from the company, that he was not sent home, that he was not back on the beach selling grilled meat to strangers.

Jonghyun had tried to keep his distance once their new room arrangements were in place, but it wasn’t possible. Not with the way Minhyun still sought him out, reached for him, pulled him into easy hugs, blew kisses his way. And Jonghyun knew that Minhyun was liberal with his affections but it didn’t stop him from thinking that what was between them was special and different than the others.

He was nervous, anxious, that Minhyun would forget him as he tried to forget Minhyun and yet ached when Minhyun’s eyes didn’t find his. He prayed that nothing would happen and yet that something would, to finally break the spell that had come over him, to give him real answers.

  
#

  
It was during their first trip to Japan when it finally happened.

On a plane up in the sky, Jonghyun had been rapt with attention staring out the window. Looking at the neighborhoods squeezed together in sinuous formations reminded him of something from a biology textbook. When he turned away from the window he caught Minhyun looking at him, a fondness in his eyes leaping out across the aisle and electrifying him as if a caress. If not for Aaron already snoring between them, something might have happened then.

They landed and had permission to enjoy the rest of the day as activities didn’t start until the following morning. All of them cavorted like free birds through the city, settling eventually in the Akihabara district, where they ended up at an arcade for hours before heading to dinner.

Over ramen, Jonghyun slurped too hard and a filament of noodle ended up smack over his nose. While the others laughed, Minhyun’s hand came under the table and rested on Jonghyun’s knee. Jonghyun ate the rest of his meal with red ears and the others thought it was because he was embarrassed for his faux pas but it was because Minhyun’s hand remained where it had landed until they left the restaurant.

“How about a movie?”

It was dark out but it was their last gasp at freedom before tour duties kicked in for the rest of the week. Minhyun was asking him for this, holding a DVD up to Jonghyun’s face, a waiting look in his eyes. A waiting look in his eyes that made it hard for Jonghyun to say no.

It was supposed to be Minhyun and Minki in one room and Jonghyun and Dongho in the other, with Aaron on a spare cot, but at the mention of another movie, Minki sighed and decamped to the neighboring room. Jonghyun, with a half-hearted protest, let him go.

The movie began, and Minhyun settled in at his side. “I’ve missed this,” he said abruptly, over the opening credits.

“Me too,” Jonghyun admitted. With that admission Minhyun bit his lip and kept his eyes fixated on the screen.

The film was a tried-and-true formula with a plot that was easy to follow: teenager pilots giant robot, saves the world. Afterwards he and Minhyun talked into the night about what would happen if they were in the same lot. For some reason, Jonghyun really believed they could save the world too. He said this in a voice thicker than he’d thought it would be. At the palpitation in his voice Minhyun’s own breath hitched and Jonghyun knew that things had already got to the point that there was something they could never go back to.

They lay there in a silence that enveloped them like the night. It had been months since they had lain awake together like this, whispering to each other in the liquid lush of borrowed time that always followed after midnight. When the DVD machine clicked off into sleep mode, Jonghyun’s breath quickened to match the pulse of white noise on the TV. He was suddenly afraid to look away from the screen. He was afraid of what would happen if Minhyun said his name and yet he wanted desperately for Minhyun to do it.

Instead, Minhyun took Jonghyun’s hand in his. Jonghyun felt like his heart would burst from the feeling.

“Minhyun,” he said breathlessly.

Some part of him nudged on yes, yes, and he must have nodded, for the next thing he knew Minhyun was reaching for him and pulling him into his arms and had tucked his chin against Jonghyun’s shoulder. Jonghyun could hear Minhyun’s breath in his ear and smell Minhyun’s smell so close and all he wanted to do was lean into it and swim through it until he found the center. The calm eye of the hurricane. Surrounded by all of what Minhyun was and would be to him.

Minhyun’s hand reached back up and touched the side of his jaw, turning Jonghyun’s face so that they were looking at each other now. There was a fierce tremble in Jonghyun’s grip. He swallowed and forced himself to match Minhyun’s own breath, which was shaky too.

There was nothing amiss. There was nothing to suggest that he and Minhyun could be anything else other than friends, than bandmates, than picture-perfect idols destined for success. There was nothing to be ashamed of.

Jonghyun found his arms wrapping tighter around Minhyun. His nose dug into Minhyun’s collarbone and it hurt, it hurt his face, but he couldn’t go anywhere else, bury himself anywhere else except here.

“Jonghyun,” Minhyun said. His voice was a séance in Jonghyun’s ear. “I like you.”

And yet when it came to this critical moment, all he could think was yes and no at the same time. An oscillation and contradiction so fierce that it paralyzed him.

They held onto each other like that for a while. Then Jonghyun squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath, and sat up.

“I know I shouldn’t,” Minhyun whispered. “It will only make things complicated. But I just wanted you to know.”

Jonghyun shook his head quickly. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. That much he knew. “I’m glad that you told me. But you know that we can’t.” The words unstuck from his throat one thorn at a time.

Minhyun held his breath. “You say we. Does that mean you feel the same?”  
  
Jonghyun couldn’t bring the words to his mouth but he trusted that the way he looked said everything.

“Jonghyunnie,” was all Minhyun said.

“We should go to bed,” Jonghyun said. But his hand reached out, just this once, just this once, to the back of Minhyun’s neck, to bring their foreheads together, to bring the tips of their noses together, to let their breaths mingle together, to make at least one memory to return to.

  
#

  
A hand on the back of his neck, on his knee, his thigh. Always lingering longer than needed. Through the years Minhyun had never stopped reaching for him. And through the years he would not let himself touch back but he also wouldn’t stop Minhyun from doing so.

Jonghyun remembered every touch. Kept the memories of them locked someplace so secret so safe that he would forget they were there. Those memories were so camouflaged that when they unfurled themselves like languid beasts in the warmth of lazy afternoons or in the silence of sleepless nights Jonghyun would not know if they were memories or fragments of his own imagination. In his own half-waking state the dreams of what if would mix with the memories of what was.

 

 


	10. Gravity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The way out is through.

 

What would happen if you came apart? What would be the worst that would happen?

Imagine a pulsing ball of light in you. Pushing hard against the cracks. Let me out, it’s said, so many times over the years. You’ve tried to talk it down. Stitch the cracks together. Glue them with whatever, push them together if necessary. Wrap yourself in cement. The more force you apply, the more brittle the shell gets. Disaster looms.

The end looms.

 

#

 

In his fevered sleep, he dreams of himself as a child.

He’s back in his childhood home in northeastern province of Gangwon. It’s summertime and he is ten years old, wearing shorts and plastic sandals and carrying a stuffed animal. “Don’t go too far,” his mother tells him. She goes back into the house and shuts the back door behind her. “The hole is dangerous.”

In the middle of their back yard is a hole six feet in diameter that stretches down forever into the earth. He's seen this hole before. It's the hole that represents every risk, every possible bad outcome that could happen if he makes the wrong decision or oversteps his boundaries. Jonghyun knows how far it goes down into the earth. The hole is deep and once you fall in, there is no coming back.

His members near the edge of the hole on the far side. Jonghyun is usually content to watch them from afar as they go about their activities. Today they're relaxing, but sometimes they're singing together or dancing together, and other times they're horsing around. Today, they’re making pastries in an open-air kitchen and Minhyun has a smudge of flour on his nose.

Everyone is laughing as Minhyun dances, a silly wiggle that he does with sincerity. Jonghyun laughs too, because Minhyun is dancing in his apron with flour on his hands. But inside, he’s scared.

“Hey, Jonghyun,” Minki calls out to him. “Come over here!”

But Jonghyun’s legs don’t work. He turns to look for his mother. But his house is gone.

“Come on,” Aaron calls out next. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

Jonghyun tries to say something, but no words come out.

Dongho scoffs, “He thinks he’s too good for us.”

That’s not it at all! Jonghyun yells, but no sound comes out. He looks at his feet, stomps them. When he looks back to the hole, only Minhyun is left. Minhyun sits at the edge, dangling his legs down.

One of his shoes is missing. Jonghyun’s heart leaps into his mouth. No!

Minhyun is singing off-key. It’s funny. Minhyun is deliberately singing off-key. Now Jonghyun is laughing. A foggy part of him thinks, why can I laugh but I can’t say anything? Tears run down his face. He scrubs at them quickly and wishes Minhyun would move away from the edge. He strains his voice to call him.

“Jonghyun?” Minhyun looks up, and slips. Jonghyun, suddenly free of gravity, suddenly fearless—leaps in after him.

 

#

 

Jonghyun wakes in the middle of the night.

He wants badly to just fall asleep again, for himself to just turn into a slurry of thoughts melting into nothingness. Like white noise on the television that fades away when one closes one’s eyes. But the itch in his fingers means he reaches for his phone to look at the polls.

Dongho is in twelfth and Minki is in fifteenth. Jonghyun is trending at eighth place, followed by Bae Jinyoung. Minhyun follows behind at rank ten.

Jonghyun keeps hitting the refresh button. The absolute number of votes goes up even though the rankings don’t change. When his palm begins to cramp and his elbow begins to twinge from holding the phone over his face for too long he finally tucks it under his pillow and shuts his eyes and sleeps fitfully until the sun comes up and they have to go.

The vans take them to the stadium where the finals are held. The stage itself is down the same long hallway. The hulking pyramidal form for the final eleven looks like a spaceship angling up to heaven.

In front of the hulking pyramid the stage director briefs the twenty of them on the order of tonight’s events. Minhyun stands to his right in the group. When the director finishes the brief they look at each other as they did last night in the mirror until they are called backstage to get ready. Minhyun’s fingers graze his. Jonghyun feels his fingers twitch in response. What if this is the last time. What if Minhyun gets chosen. What if he gets chosen. What if one of them is all alone?

Don’t think that way, he tells himself. Only the next step. That’s always been your strength. When you need to, all you can do is to do what’s next.

His next step takes him backstage.

 

#

 

“Super Hot team on in four, three, two—” the producer says, as the assistants check their mics one last time.

At “one—”, his team emerges onstage to the screams of the crowd. Jonghyun takes his place at his mark. He doesn’t see anyone or anything. The performance passes in a blur.

Afterwards, Jonghyun changes into the grey school uniform and then waits to be called back onstage. Waiting and sweating and terrified. Minki looks pallid and Dongho’s face is a wreck. Minhyun looks sick. Minhyun’s fingers brush against his and this time, Jonghyun takes them into his own.

They hold hands tightly, their fingers shaking against one another. They don’t say anything to each other. He holds onto Minhyun’s until the last possible minute.

He dreads the moment he’s going to let go.

“Final twenty on in three—”

He squeezes Minhyun’s hand.

“Two—”

Minhyun squeezes his.

“One—”

 

#

 

Hard work was hard work and for a while it saved Kim Jonghyun. Growing up, his weekends were spent helping his parents with the snack shop by the ocean.

The snack shop was a two by four metal cart with a red and blue umbrella from which reams of junk food in foil bags hung. On the weekends he’d get up early and load the inventory onto the cart and they’d hitch it to his father’s sedan and drive it down to the oceanside. They would stand outside and skewer meat on a stick and fry it up on the griddle. Maybe they’d get forty customers if it was a good day. Wearing big hats but no sunscreen the Kim family would sell their wares until they ran out or until it was the end of the day. Whichever came first. Growing up, Jonghyun’s arms were always brown.

Hard work was hard work was hard work. There was no getting around it. Summers were the best for business. Something about the ocean made people hungry for meat and salt.

But one summer when the sun and the heat had carved a near permanent squint into his face Jonghyun had his first treacherous thought: was all hard work created equal?

And so when he was scouted outside the school grounds one day by a man in a visor with a clipboard who told him to ask his parents if he’d be interested in joining a boy band, he jumped on his chance. With the help of his older sisters who would do anything for him he secured his father’s blessing to begin training for the big-city entertainment company that was named after a group of stars in the sky. What was there to lose, after all.

If things didn’t work out there was always the metal cart by the ocean.

A woman named Park Jiyoung came to him after he moved to Seoul. She confirmed the creation of a boy group and said that it would need a leader. She and the other executives sensed that in Jonghyun. This woman spoke with a clean Seoul dialect but told him she wasn’t from Seoul either and that it was okay to not be from Seoul.

She looked at him and said she could tell he was a hard worker and was good to his parents and in this industry and in this country that kind of attitude would get you very far.

When he moved to Seoul he got one day a week out in the sun’s worth of pocket money every month from his parents. He thought how much he wanted to do well so he could take his family on holiday when this was all done. On the days when it seemed like he would never make it he would put more of himself remembering that he had to take his family on holiday.

Memorizing footwork saved him. Stringing words together saved him. The kind words of others saved him. Saved him from being a snack shop boy at the far north of the country passing meat on a stick to strangers. Hard work was hard work was hard work.

It saved him until the seventeenth year of his life, when he fell in love with a boy and it ripped through his heart like a shotgun shell.

He fell in love with a boy and it was like racing two hundred miles an hour over a desert highway and he’d reached the cliffside only to find that the police were already there waiting for him and his heart. You know the deal, sonny, the police said. So he’d jumped off the edge of the cliff not knowing what white river lay in the canyon below. You would have never known the violence with which he loved a boy for Jonghyun was still as obedient, hardworking, and filial as the best of sons. But inside himself his heart waged war with what he believed his life should mean and what it was meant to become.

When a boy smiled at him and held his hand in the quickening dark of so many secret wakeful nights Jonghyun found that he couldn’t resist the pull. And even after he said no with his lips his heart would still be moved.

A boy who was not afraid of him, or in any way disconcerted—Minhyun’s modest fearlessness, his truthfulness that put all artifice aside, his entire forgetfulness of himself in his earnest quiet holding of what was in his eye—presented something in which Jonghyun was so lacking, which he would learn none of his usual weapons could overcome.

It didn’t mean he didn’t try with hard work to build the defenses up when they were torn down; to mend and stitch the fences when they were torn through; to run in order to increase the distance between them, to guard his deep understanding of himself against the actions he would take in reality. It didn’t mean that he didn’t try.

But over the years Jonghyun loved a boy and it ripped through his defenses like the air in his face on his way down and he loved a boy and it tore his flesh apart like the water a sudden sieve stripping him to a pulpy red essence. He loved a boy and it carried him like the natural laws of buoyancy above the froth and deposited him gently on the bank. He loved a boy and it shone at him like the sun in the canyon at noon right overhead inescapable nowhere to hide baking him to a seen crisp. He loved a boy and all that was left of him was a brown withered jerky turning into pale dust one year at a time. He loved a boy and it dissipated him into the air and the soil infecting all that he touched with he loved a boy.

Hard work was hard work was hard work. But when Jonghyun fell in love it needed something other than hard work and he didn’t know what to do.

Eventually, he learned the answer was to just let it be.

 

#

 

This shell—it hasn’t always been here, right?

For a long time you were just the light itself. Gelatinous and marigold and all around.

When did you grow this shell? What is this shell even for? What does it protect you from?

A hand on the back of your neck, on your knee, your thigh. Always lingering longer than needed.

 

#

 

“Number nine—” BoA pauses. “Pledis’ Hwang Minhyun.”

Jonghyun is stung by a wave of sadness and joy so sharp it makes tears well in his eyes. All he can think is that Minhyun who believes in aliens and Minhyun who believes in Jonghyun and Minhyun who could have left to go somewhere else but never did, has a place in the final eleven.

He finds Minhyun’s hand one more time. The way Minhyun looks back as he walks away lifts Jonghyun’s spirits and breaks Jonghyun’s heart. Are you coming?

With every step that Minhyun takes Jonghyun wants to go, too. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.

I’ll be there soon.

Don’t worry.

 

#

 

“Jonghyunnie,” Minhyun said, after Jonghyun had finished a round of kart racing on his Nintendo DS. He was sitting on Minki’s bed, reading a book while Minki clipped his toenails. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

“Nothing,” Jonghyun said brusquely, clicking “next race.”

“Want to come to Busan?” Minhyun said. “My parents would love to see you.”

“We’ll even take you to an arcade,” Minki chimed in.

And because he didn’t want to go back to Gangwon and didn’t want to face his own parents with the weight of imminent failure so heavy on his shoulders—that the group might be disbanding and that they were going to humiliate themselves in front of millions of people on a reality TV show in the new year—Jonghyun accepted. The fact that Minhyun’s parents left the heat on in the winter and didn’t scold him for sleeping in late added to the appeal.

And so Jonghyun found himself riding around Busan in the passenger’s seat tearing up next to Minhyun as a Nell ballad blasted from the speakers. He rolled down the windows to let the arctic air in and cool off the heat building behind his eyes.

“We’re here,” Minhyun said. The worry was palpable in his voice but his motions were smooth, efficient, as he got out of the car. He’d seen Jonghyun’s depressive episodes before and knew how to get on with them. Jonghyun appreciated that Minhyun accepted his dark moods. Part of it made him even more sullen because he knew it would be accepted. Like a petulant child.

They’d been out all day—at an arcade, as Minki promised—and Jonghyun’s hands were a little cramped from being wrapped around controllers for the last eight hours but Minki and Minhyun had been good sports, amazing sports, organizing the day for him and tagging along even though they weren’t into games and they lost all of them resoundingly. For a while, in the smokiness of the arcade and in the explosions and fast turns and left hooks and sniper KOs, Jonghyun could drown out the monologue of worry in his head.

“Shoot,” Minhyun had said, after they parted ways with Minki. “I forgot, I was supposed to get groceries. We can stop by the mart on the way back home. It’ll be quick.”

It wasn’t quick, in the end. It wasn’t quick because Jonghyun lagged behind, fidgeting with his pockets, because he got lost in the mart and Minhyun had to circle back and find him, because he got distracted reading the labels on sweets. He finally found Minhyun at the register and helped to pack up and take the bags into the car.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m a mess today.”

“It’s all right,” Minhyun said. He didn’t take his eyes off the road but reached over and put a hand on Jonghyun’s leg. The warm touch of it anchored Jonghyun to reality and he kept his eyes on the road ahead, watching the cars and the lights on the highway pass by.

They pulled up into the driveway and the outdoor lights automatically switched on, bathing the two of them in an orange glow. The windows began to cloud over from the heat inside and the cold outside and that’s when Jonghyun realized that he was warm. Minhyun let the last song on the album finish and them switched off the engine. Neither of them moved to leave the car.

“It’ll be okay,” Minhyun said.

“Really?” Even to his own ears, Jonghyun knew he sounded like a kid.

“Of course. Do you think that what we’ve learned over the years is only relevant to the music industry?

Jonghyun turned away, tracing wet, clear circles in the car window. “I don’t want to leave the music industry, though.”

“You don’t have to. Think about all the connections you’ve made. There are many _sunbaes_ who would help you find something. I’m sure there will be a place for you, and you’ll find it.”

“I’m not sure,” Jonghyun murmured. But he did feel a little better.

“And don’t worry about us,” Minhyun said. “We’re not kids anymore who don’t know how to clean up after ourselves, or when to wake up in the morning.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jonghyun said, thinking of Dongho and Minki.

“Maybe it’s a chance for them to learn on their own,” Minhyun said gently.

“What do you want to do?” Jonghyun said. He felt scared asking it but wanted to know. Minhyun hadn’t talked much about himself yet, if ever.

A sort of calm came over Minhyun like a slow wave. A little smile hovered around the corner of his lips.

“What?” Jonghyun wanted to reach out, to take his shoulder, to tell him, don’t leave me, the same time he wanted to say, leave me if you want to, if you’ve always wanted to, if you think it’s the best for you.

“I used to think,” Minhyun said, “that maybe I could go back to school and study something important. But I’m bad at maths, so I don’t think it would work out.”

“What do you need maths for?”

“To become an engineer, of course. To build a giant robot for you to pilot.”

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun swallowed. _That could be us_ , he had said to Minhyun, so many moons ago, when he was young and didn’t know anything about how life actually was. _We could save the world, too._

“But thank goodness you want to stay in music.” Minhyun sighed. “That means I can stay in music, too.”

“You don’t want to try something else?” Jonghyun dug his nails into his palm. “You’re so talented, Minhyun. You could be good at anything you wanted to do.“

“No,” Minhyun said, in a tone that sounded like signing a contract or cutting the ribbon to unveil a new building project. Somehow understated and dry and yet ceremonial. “I made my choice a long time ago.”

Jonghyun hurried to grab the grocery bags from the trunk before Minhyun. His head was spinning. What did Minhyun mean? Was he reading into Minhyun’s words correctly? In the crinkle of laden plastic bags as Minhyun unlocked the front door, Jonghyun gathered himself a little bit. Minhyun meant that he picked his career path. Minhyun meant only that.

And yet.

They stepped in the foyer, which was toasty from the heat. Something clicked, and Jonghyun trembled, not from the cold or the warmth, from the sudden change from outside to inside. It had nothing to do with the temperature and everything to do with what Minhyun said, and what it meant if Jonghyun let himself think what it meant—

“Let me,” Minhyun murmured, and knelt down. One shoe at a time Minhyun undid the knots on Jonghyun's laces. One hand on the toe of the shoe, the other on the back of his ankle as Jonghyun slipped his feet out. Minhyun’s hand remained there and he looked up.

That smile.

Jonghyun felt his face go hot as his heart dropped into a vortex. The weight of his past crumpled off him like dried clay as he plummeted to the center of the earth. Until all that was left was the molten core of him, burning with an intense desire for a life to call his own.

 

#

 

What would happen if you came apart? What would happen if you let the shell break open? What would the light be?

Wouldn’t it just be itself?

What would be so wrong with that?

 

#

 

BoA’s voice and the crowd come from miles away. Minhyun is sitting on the edge of a stage chair too big for him.

The screens show Jonghyun’s face. His face up there on the big screen looks like an avatar of itself. He could in his small physical body climb up to nest in that face on the screen but there is no more time for that anymore. He sees himself and he sees what he really wants.

There are four contenders for the eleventh spot. His face up there larger than life itself, like a ghost’s next to Sewoon’s, Dongho’s, and Sungwoon’s. He has a one in four chance to make it to the eleventh spot.

And if he does—then Dongho, Minki, and Aaron will be all alone. To fend for themselves. The group would fall apart. Aaron wouldn’t have a reason to stay, would he?

But if Jonghyun doesn’t make it, then it’s Minhyun who has to be all alone.

The final announcement is boiling something over in him. Jonghyun’s legs shake. It takes everything he has just to stand. Minki reaches a hand forward to still him. He can hear Dongho crack his knuckles from behind. On the other end of the stadium, down a long runway and up a flight of stairs, Minhyun sits on the edge of his seat and prays.

Jonghyun prays, too. For courage.

“And in fourteenth place,” BoA says, looking directly into the camera lens—

The courage to accept the truth.

“—Pledis Entertainment’s—”

And he does.

“—Kim Jonghyun.”

He accepts it all.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s not usually my style to do A/N at the end of each chapter. But this chapter took so long to publish, I’d like to indulge in a bit of reflection and thank _you_ for sticking with this and making it possible.
> 
> Chapter 10 was months in the making. I had the first draft of it in March — and it was about 1/4 of its current length. I took major shortcuts, much to my beta’s (and my own) chagrin. There were a number of moments in here—Seonho’s reconciliation with Jonghyun, Jonghyun’s phone call to his sisters (now outtakes in the drabble collection, **All the Places You Might Call Home** )—that didn’t make it into this final version. The making of this chapter took many twists and turns, and for a while I thought it would be in development hell forever. 
> 
> It wasn’t until I saw Wanna One during their U.S. tour that certain things finally clicked into place. Being able to see the boys as performers (and real people, lol, not just hyperbolized figments of my imagination) helped me understand their frailties and humanity more. Seeing Hwang Minhyun in person, I could finally understand his unique appeal. The real MH is a sight to behold: elegant, hardworking, stoic, and delightfully sweaty. In his stance and his eyes: a lingering sadness (and tiredness) that makes him all the more fascinating for how much he gives to each stage (full mobility and 100% dedication, with no shortcuts even when he wasn’t on camera. One is inclined to think that JH trained him well.)
> 
> That said, it’s really all thanks to @perkybird that this finally came together. @perkybird keeps me honest af and is the best beta reader one could possibly ask for. Thanks for all the late nights spent discussing character motivations and for recommending me the right music to get this jump-started after a long dry spell and for motivating me to finish this even when I start losing all hope. You da best. 
> 
> And to you who is reading this—thank _you_. This fic wouldn’t exist without you.❤️


	11. The Calling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Wake up, you stupid bighead._
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> Luckily, Minhyun has Sujin.

 

 

My stupid bighead baby brother was born on August 9, 1995. The second week of the eighth month of the fifth year of the last decade of the twentieth century. The first character of his first name means gentle, and the last character means deep and mysterious. Our family name uses the same character found in the word “emperor,” but we’re normal as normal can be. He was born in a 100 percent average birth, with no complications. So it’s weird that he’s so weird, right?

Our father’s father was a fisherman, as was common for men in postwar Busan; my father went into the fishing business later. My mother was a typical housewife. She took the time to teach me and my brother how to take care of ourselves. We carried the smell of ginseng with us growing up.

We spent most of our childhood in a small house in east Busan provided by my father’s company. It was a little old but roomy enough. Pine trees grew in the garden in the backyard. In the spring, a small pond would form in the dip on the far side of the yard. Later, when he did well for himself at the import-export business, we were able to move into our own house, closer to the city.

The suburb where we lived was a typical middle-class kind of place. Everyone lived in neat little houses; some might have been larger, others smaller. You could count on them all having two stories and similar entrances. My friends’ fathers were all employed in mid-sized, local companies, though a few of them worked for big, multinational companies. In the world I grew up in a typical family had two or three children. In most of those families those kids would grow up to take on their dad’s businesses or follow their mom’s footsteps. We might have been like that too, until one day when Minhyun was ten years old, everything changed.

At the end of his sixth year in elementary school, our parents took us up north to the Bangtaesan Forest to go camping. My parents both loved being on the road; when we went camping, I’m sure part of the perks were that we’d both be too tired at the end of the day to squabble.

“Come on, bighead,” I called back to him. He was a bit chubby at the time—consequence of having a terribly doting grandmother, so I guess I couldn’t blame him for being a little slow. But he’d fallen behind again. That wouldn’t have been annoying in and of itself, but Minhyun was singing the refrain to a popular soap opera opening theme song for the eleventh time that night, and I was getting sick of it. For one, he was trying to sing in a tone too low for his pigeon of a voice, and it made him sound like a try-hard. Two, he kept missing the climax by half a note, and the dissonance was starting to grate on me big time.

”No wonder you’re so far behind,” I snapped back at him. “Maybe if you saved your breath for the hike...”

But Minhyun just kept singing. With every year that passed he was getting better and better at ignoring me, which only annoyed me even more.

“You’re going to have to lose all that weight if you want to be a real singer,” I told him. “So maybe it’s better for you to just concentrate on getting up this hill in one piece.”

“I like singing,” Minhyun said obstinately, in between chorus A and refrain B.

I know it wasn’t fair of me to be so merciless to him, but we were kids then. It was only later that he would be able to articulate—and I’d be able to understand—what singing really meant to him.

My father hollered out that we’d be settling down in a clearing just up ahead, so I charged forward until I couldn’t hear Minhyun’s singing anymore. It was uncommonly warm for autumn in the forests, and the heat stoked my irritation. The way he took his time, the way he got lost in his thoughts, the way he was so inside himself, it was all annoying. Especially if you were trying to order him around.

Once we put up the last pole and finished stringing up the first of two tents, my mother shot me a look. “Where’s Minhyun?”

My heart latched in my throat. Half an hour had passed, but Minhyun hadn’t showed up yet. When I had last looked back, he wasn’t that far behind. Surely he would have heard us in the clearing by now. But I played it cool. “He’s probably been singing to a bug in a tree. Let me go find him.”

I fanned myself as I tracked back to the main path. It was just too warm for just me, which was making me mad again. But being mad alone couldn’t account for the air feeling like the inside of a greenhouse. The green fragrance of the forest carried thick by the sudden humidity I felt deep in my bones, sickly sweet. There was no sign of Minhyun anywhere, and no sound of his voice. “Idiot,” I hissed. It felt wrong to break the silence this way, but I had to say something.

Sweat dropped into my eyes. Why was it so hot? That should have been my first indication that something was off. But I was only eleven and didn’t know any better. I just wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and kept going.

I found Minhyun face down in the dirt some hundred meters down the path. I turned him over. His body was limp and his eyes were open but he didn’t seem to notice me. Shaking and slapping him had no effect, either. His eyes scanned left and right lazily, like he was looking at something far away. In times like these a kid should go running for her parents, right? But I was stuck. There was a weight in my heart like a stone, like gravity itself.

I kept thinking about how much trouble I’d be in if Minhyun died like this, without an explanation. _You shouldn’t have been so mean to him_ , a small part of me said. I thought about how life would never be the same again.

Several minutes passed. Then Minhyun coughed. A dry cough, nothing dramatic, just like clearing one’s throat. It was the best sound I’d ever heard. Then he blinked a few times and closed his eyes. When he opened them again it looked like nothing out of the ordinary. Like he’d just taken a nap and woken up. He didn’t know why he was on the ground.

“Stupid,” I said, and hugged him close to my chest.

The air had cooled as the sky had darkened, as if a breeze had blown through a cloud of steam. I hauled him off the ground and grasped his hand as we walked to camp. When we reached the tents Mom shot us a knowing look, like, _oh, you two were fighting again, weren’t you._

I went along with it. Even if I wanted to tell the truth, anytime I wanted to say something my voice would get stuck in my throat. Like a cork in the neck of a slim, green bottle, trapping the dark liquid underneath. There was no way I could answer for what happened, so I just tried to be nicer to my brother that day, and every day after that.

 

#

 

“Stop picking,” Mom tells me. I glare at her, but tuck my thumbs into my fists to stop myself from worrying at my cuticles.

The production staff has kept us waiting outside in a room with plastic folding chairs and the aircon turned on way too high. Jonghyun’s parents are next to us. His sisters are there too, speaking to each other in hushed undertones. They’re probably worried about him, wondering what he’s thinking about, the same way our family is thinking about Minhyun.

Inside, they’re probably grilling Minhyun with stupid questions about winning a spot in the new band. Questions like—

_How is Hwang Minhyun feeling?_

“Ah,” he’d say, because he always says that to buy himself some time while he thinks of other things to say. “Grateful to the national producers,” he’d probably say. They’ve trained him well. “Without the help of the national producers, I wouldn’t be able to stand on the stage and debut with Wanna One.”

_What will Minhyun miss the most about Nu’est?_

“There are so many wonderful moments that we’ve shared together,” he’d say. Ever the diplomat. “We’ve been a part of each other’s lives for almost ten years. I’ll miss just seeing the members every day.”

Or how about a question like,

_Hey, Hwang Minhyun. You don’t make a big deal out of it, but it’s a pretty well-known fact that you actually just want to be some guy singing these kinds of wispy love songs at the local coffee joint. So are you prepared to finally live the reality that you love singing about? Ready to make Top 40 bangers for an audience that doesn’t care about you or what you really want, all while touring the world?  
_

And then Dongho would squint at the cameras like, _hey, are you bozos done yet?_

Minki bounds into the room where we are seated first and Minhyun, Dongho, and Jonghyun trail after. We all stand up at the same time. None of us really know what to do with ourselves, so it’s me who says, “it’s about time you showed up, bighead.”

Minhyun bursts into tears.

 

#

 

Our dad never thought that Minhyun would inherit the seafood import-export business. Like all good parents mom and dad had hoped Minhyun would become a doctor—would have worked out, seeing as Minhyun was a nitpick and a clean freak and also nice to everyone without getting overly close. Perfect doctor material, right? The fact that he always worked his ass off and never complained was another plus.

But I guess our dad knew that the world was bigger and more spectacular than the world of fish and shipping containers and spreadsheets, or even the biggest hospital in the city. So he wasn’t too put out when Minhyun came home from school one day with a business card from a talent scout. I thought it was weird that Munhyun been scouted while eating fried chicken—but weirder things had happened to him before.

That night our parents discussed Minhyun’s future. My dad asked my mom if he’d be all right letting the world in on the infamous Hwang family jawline (as if it were some big secret). She replied with her eyes: if our jawline’s purpose had been to attain a national audience and it was for that reason that our ancestors had so painstakingly bred it and inherited it through the years, there was no reason for us to not profit off our ancestral privilege while giving Minhyun an education that the public school system could not provide. Who were they to stop destiny?

I’m more on the blunt side, while my brother inherited our mother’s gift for speaking with the eyes. A key asset to have in a world increasingly dominated by television screens. I was a little jealous of him because our dad decided to let him give the stardom thing a shot, but mostly I was proud. It was right that a boy so precocious do something different with his life.

“Don’t forget about me when you’re famous,” I told him that night as we brushed our teeth. “Just because you’re going to be a hotshot doesn’t mean you can skip vacuum duty.”

“I like vacuuming,” said Minhyun through a mouthful of foam.

We stayed up for a little while longer, each finishing up our homework. I finished before him and set our futons and blankets on the floor, crawling into mine as he packed up his backpack for school tomorrow. I watched him with some tender feeling as he put everything away with utmost care. First went the notebooks, with neatly-arranged tiles of post-it notes cascading out from the sides. Then went in the mechanical pencils inside a cloth pouch my mother had sewn for him three years ago. Then the calculator, and his textbooks last. It’s like he was putting away his thoughts one by one. With the care he tucked each item into his backpack, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were actually whispering a quiet “ _see you soon_ ” to each one of them.

“So what do you like about singing, exactly? Is it the same reason you like vacuuming?”

Minhyun zipped up his backpack slowly. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

“Haven’t thought about it?” I propped myself up on an arm. “If you’re going to be a singer, you’re going to have to answer this question at some point on TV or for a magazine. So it’s probably good to start thinking about an answer.”

Minhyun crawled into his futon and hummed in thought. “What kind of answer should it be?”

“Well, you’re not exactly the funny type, so I wouldn’t go for something that tries to be funny. Maybe you could say something like, because it’s my one true passion, and leave it at that. Or maybe you take the mysterious route and just laugh and say something about waiting for your one true love. These are the kinds of answers people would expect.” To be honest, I didn’t have the answer either, but it was fun to pretend for a moment that I was being interviewed, and forced to think of an answer on the spot.

“For me, I don’t think it’s about passion or about liking one specific person,” he finally said. “Not that I’ve liked anyone that way, though I’m sure I will feel that way about someone, someday.”

The way that he said _someday_  sent shivers up my spine. It was so oddly specific and yet so detached, like it was no big deal that he’d already figured it all out. I wanted to ask him if that’s how he knew how he’d fall in love—but I knew the answer even if I wasn’t ready to hear it from his mouth. _I‘ll know it when I see it,_ something like that _._

“So what’s it about, then? Do you just like the sound of your own voice that much?“

Minhyun was so quiet you’d think he was asleep, but that was just the sound of him lost in his thoughts. Whether he was far out in space or lodged in the earth’s core, it was always hard to tell. After a while, deep space and deep earth began to merge into the same thing. A sleep-inducing kind of feeling.

“That’s not it, either.” A knowing smile spread across his face. “It’s more about the connection singing makes between the inside and the outside of the singer. If I can connect the inside and outside of me, then I can also show others something new. A world they’ve never seen before. To me, that’s what makes it worthwhile.”  

“What kind of place do you want people to go?”

“It’s not a specific place. But I’d like for them to know that wherever it is, it’s waiting for them.”

I had a sudden, fierce, protective conviction that this was the right way for my brother, for all of his life. When he died, he should always feel like it was his life, however it ended up. Nobody should be able to steal the words from his mouth or take the time away from what was rightfully his. But I didn’t have the right way to say this, and it wasn’t really the right time to tell it to him anyways. All I could manage was, “well, whatever you end up saying, it should sound like it came from you.”

This seemed to agree with him. He nodded, and I switched off the light.

 

#  

 

Minhyun’s face looks raw and pink, like a freshly shucked fish. I roll the window down in our car to let the breeze in. “What a hot mess you are,” I tell him, because someone has to tell him something.

We’d piled into the rental car and drove away from the studio. I wish we could have left faster, but there were crowds of boys that wanted to congratulate Minhyun and talk to him once he’d changed back into his regular clothes. One in particular, Yoo Seonho, kept latching onto Minhyun until the last minute. And then there was the awkward goodbye between him and the other Nu’est members. He could barely bring himself to look anyone in the eye, Jonghyun least of all.

Aaron hugged me goodbye. “It was nice to see you again. Just bring your brother back to us in one piece for dinner tomorrow, ‘kay?”

I waved Aaron off and shooed my still shell-shocked brother into the car.

Which brings us now to the car on the road, humid from baking in the summer heat all day. A little of the afternoon’s summer warmth still emanates up from the leather seats. I reach over to the front and switch on the radio. The music—some ancient, upbeat trot ballad—masks the sound of Minhyun’s sniffling and drowns out the drone of the engine.

“It’s supposed to be a happy occasion, isn’t it?” Mom says from the front seat. “You did it for you and you did it for your group.”

“It’s not even two years,” Dad says. “Less than military service.”

“So why are you so sad?” Mom asks rhetorically, handing Minhyun a tissue. He rubs it over his eyes so hard his eyelids turn bright pink.

My heart twists. Our parents have been married for a long time, so they might’ve forgotten: there’s always something that will separate you from the ones you love. In fact, sometimes it’s necessary to have something separate you from the ones you love, so that you can show them how much you love them through the act of moving closer. Like waving away a veil of smoke in a nightclub, or sieging a wall miles and miles long snaking around the edge of an forgotten city. But all Minhyun says is, “I don’t know.”

I open the window to let out some of the stuffiness, and lean my head on his shoulder until we arrive at our hotel.

We check in and get settled into our rooms. I can tell it takes Minhyun a while before he gets to sleep. All night long he tosses and turns and groans. I press a pillow over my ears and wait for sleep to finally come to him. When it does, it’s like he’s been swallowed whole by a whale, and the room goes as quiet as a submarine. It takes me a while to get to sleep, too.

All too soon I’m woken up by Minhyun wrestling with his sheets again. I throw a pillow in his general direction. “Bighead. I couldn’t catch a break all night with all your sleep talking.”

“Was I?” He croaks.

“Like you always do.” Another pillow in his direction, and then another one for good measure.

“Sorry,” comes the muffled apology from under a mountain of pillows.

Some moments pass. My phone pings with an incoming text. It’s Aaron. _How’s he doing?_  Accompanied by three flex-arm emojis and a thoughtful emoji, followed by a poop emoji. Haha. I’m glad he’s back in Korea. I text back. _How do you think he’s doing_. Minhyun drifts into sleep again and starts snoring, which is uncommon for him.

“Hey, you. C’mon, you lump. Let’s go buy some breakfast. You know how mom gets on edge when her blood sugar is low.”

We journey to a fruit stall two blocks away. Minhyun’s eyes are all but puffed shut from crying and his nose is blocked. All this in addition to a face mask and the lack of any hair product hide the fact that he’s Hwang Minhyun, but I can tell he’s a little bit nervous to be out in public. Stockholm Syndrome? They kept them locked up like rats in that facility. This time with us now and his dinner later with his band mates are his first gasps at freedom. Well, before his next thing.

If he and his band mates are even a thing now. Last time Jonghyun came to visit us the topic of Nu’est’s future was a no-go. Even looking Jonghyun in the eyes was like walking on eggshells. Aaron was already back in America and wasn’t responding to any of my texts. Only my bighead baby brother was barely keeping it together.

A loud sniff shakes me out of my thoughts. I look over and see tears running down his face. Great. He’s losing his shit _here_? In front of the fruit stand _ahjumma_? Thankfully, it’s early enough in the morning that barely anyone is out, and I rush us over to a nearby bus stop. It’s overcast right now. Or maybe the sun just hasn’t come out fully yet.

“I started taking classes at Y college,” I tell him, digging my fingernails into the rind of a tangerine. “You were lucky to never have bitten the school bug like me.”

“Mmhm,” Minhyun says from the corner of his mouth.

“Next time you’re back in town, you should meet some of my new friends. One of them is a potter,” I said. “I think you’ll like his work.”

“I like pots,” Minhyun says, voice murky.

A part of me wonders what the hell is actually going on in his head. The other part feels dark and heavy, like his gloomy inner thoughts are so powerful they’re exerting a gravitational force.

“To be honest,” I take a breath. “We dated for a bit. It’s not like I’m biased or anything, but I’d think his work was good even if we hadn’t dated. You get this feeling of big calmness and sadness when you look at his pots. There are a lot of them, too, because he went on a bit of a binge. It was probably my fault. He was really into me, but I couldn’t feel anything for him. We went to some really nice places, too. Classy hotel restaurants and chic gallery openings. I had a good time whenever I was with him, but there was nothing happening inside me that made me think, hey, I want to keep this going for a while. So I broke it off.”

I rub the orange rind between my fingers and remember when the potter tried to kiss me on our third and last date. “We went to this nice French restaurant that had just opened. The whole time I’d been talking a lot to try and cover up the fact that I realized it wasn’t going to work out. After dinner, he’d wanted to walk me back, and I’d felt sorry for him—and was mustering up the courage to end it, but I didn’t have the right words. So the walk back was full of awkward silences, you know? He tried to kiss me goodnight. I think it was his way of trying something to get an answer out of me, or to try to get me to say what was on my mind. Well, I didn’t kiss him back. Just turned my head before his lips could meet mine and stood there.”

I’d felt cruel, like an evil stepmother from a fairytale. But there was nothing else I could do. When my potter friend stepped back, I managed to meet his eyes. He didn’t look as hurt as I thought he did, but there was nothing in his face. In that moment I somehow knew that I’d changed his worldview forever.

“I guess what I’m saying is,” I sighed, “I’m full of stones. All of this inert stuff stuff is inside me, and so I’ve never been able to really like someone. When it just comes down to it, my feelings don’t mix and mesh that way. There are too many stones. But you’re different. You care about your members a lot. I know that you love them. Sometimes I’m jealous of you for being able to feel that way about someone so strongly and for so long.”  

I peel an orange with quick, tidy motions, separating the filaments from the flesh. The sudden whiff of oranges blooms around us. I pick off the fibrous veins one by one and then split it apart in two, giving Minhyun the slightly bigger of two pieces. He pops them into his mouth one at a time. So do I. Sweet and fresh. The smell makes me feel like we’re kids again, when our mom would peel us oranges this way.

“So think of it as a long-distance relationship,” I say. “You won’t be that far from your precious Jonghyunnie or the others. Everyone will still be around. The agency can’t control who you text, right?”

At the mention of Jonghyun, Minhyun closes his eyes and his lips tremble. Yes, Jonghyun’s time in the spotlight was too short. It’s possible that once Nu’est disbands, no one will remember him except for a few die-hard fans. The thought seems too cruel to have occurred in my brain, and yet there it is. I really am a fairytale stepmother.

“Idiot,” I say, before any more mean thoughts can pop up. “Not you.” I clarify. Then my voice raises of its own accord. “Maybe if your precious leader had just tried harder to win the hearts of the nation’s producers, you’d be happy.”

“It’s not his fault.”

There is a steely edge in his voice that says, _don’t go there._ I wonder where _there_ is, for him. Through the clouds, a hole in space, far on the other side of the universe, some place that regular people can’t get to easily.

Minhyun watches the cars stream across the highway, eyes scanning left and right. The sun comes in through the scratched acrylic walls of the bus stop. A low-hanging tree branch scrapes tattily against the roofing. The dust in the air today makes the road look more yellow than it is, and when I see Minhyun it’s like looking through an old television screen. Like he’s just a figment of my own memory, slipping away. Becoming one with the dust and the atmosphere.

“What’s going on in your head?” I ask.

“I have to say goodbye,” Minhyun says.

And like that, I am feeling it with him: this sadness. I scoot myself over to sit closer to him.

“Look. I don’t know what’s going on your head, word for word, but what I know is that you’ve always been waiting for something. The right moment, or the right conditions. A comet, or an asteroid, or a chunk of moon falling to the earth to tell you hey, you dinosaur, maybe now’s your chance to stop being a dinosaur. And it’s possible you’ve known exactly what you’ve been waiting for, but you just never had a way to talk about it because you’ll only know it when you see it. So here’s what I think, bighead. The thing that you’ve been waiting for is finally here. It couldn’t be any bigger or more obvious.”

Minhyun waits for me to catch my breath, and then turns to me.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Why? Does it sound like I’m mad at you?” 

“A little.” Minhyun smiles.

“I’m mad at you because I don’t want you to waste a perfectly good chance to get what you’ve wanted all this time. With the new group and those new members, you’ll be able to bring your fans into a world with the things and ideas they’ve been waiting for. That’s a dream come true, isn’t it?”

Minhyun nods.

“But here’s the thing. You need to do it for yourself, too,” I say. “For a long time, you’ve served your group, and you’ve served your fans. But Wanna One is your chance to show people a new side of yourself. The things you’ve had to hold back because Nu’est was struggling before—you don’t have to hold yourself back now. And you shouldn’t have to protect anyone from your feelings.”

A bus wheels up to the stop and opens its doors. We wave him on by. _No, we’re not getting on_. The driver shrugs and the bus takes off with a deep-bellied hydraulic lumber.

Minhyun looks down at his hands. “You know about how I feel?”

I think about playing coy, but that would just waste time. We’re grown-up, after all, and can handle the sorry truths of our lives. “Of course I know. You’re not the easiest person to read, but when it comes to Kim Jonghyun you’re stupid honest.”

Minhyun blushes. “How long have you known?”

Well, I think to myself, the first time you brought him home to visit us in Busan, Mom loved him and this made you just as nervous and happy as if you’d been after parental permission for a the person you planned to marry. You doted on Jonghyun’s every move more than you’d ever doted on your studies or in the careful way you put things into your backpack. I’d moved into the guest bedroom to give you some privacy but boy did you two abuse your privileges, staying up all night chatting. And that wasn’t going to be the last time I’d lose sleep over the two of you.

I shake off the memories and my all-too-many worries about his future. It’s not going to help Minhyun right now. “That’s not the important part. The important part is what you’re going to do now.”

Minhyun takes a deep breath.

“You’re right, you know.” Minhyun says, tapping his fingers on his thigh. His words are thick through his mask, and he takes it off. “I’m saying goodbye to something, and I couldn’t have said goodbye to it at any other time.

”There are a lot of things I’m sad about. Our time as a group _like this_ is over. Sure, we’ll come back together after a year or so, but it won’t be the same. I’ll have changed, and so will they. Who knows what we’ll be when we’re one group again? The thing I know for sure is that we can’t be the same way we were before, with all our old hopes and dreams. And that’s what I’m saying goodbye to. It lasted a long time, but now it’s over.

“When it comes to Jonghyun and me, what I’m saying goodbye to is the hope that we would have been able to be together in that private world of our own making. Together in the same group, going to the same places, totally intertwined in each other’s lives, never not breathing the same air—it would have been too perfect, wouldn’t it? Like something out of a movie. The kind of perfect that would have destroyed us if it were broken by real life.

“So for a long time I was waiting for a sign, or some kind of permission. Now that I’m in a different group, I’m no longer bound by the same rules. Logically, I’m freed in more ways than one. Because belonging to a different group—even if it’s just for a little while—is a way of becoming a new me. It’s a way of saying, now I’m eye-to-eye with you. And here’s what I want to say.”

Another bus drives by, but it doesn’t stop, and it doesn’t idle. The current of its momentum tumbles over us and sweeps the dust down the road.

“You’re pretty smart for a bighead,” I say, my eyes watering. It’s the dust, I swear.

 

#

 

I drop Minhyun off at the restaurant in the evening. Aaron is standing at the front to greet us. I shift the car into park and unbuckle my seatbelt.

“You take care now,” I tell Minhyun, hugging him.

“You take care too,” Minhyun says. It’s like we’re saying goodbye for the last time. This really is the last time I’ll see Minhyun this way, whatever this way is.

Aaron comes up to my side of the car so I roll down my window. “Sure you don’t want to join us for a drink?” He asks.

“I’d have to find parking,” I say, trying not to laugh at how eager he looks. Like a puppy. We do have some catching up to do since he got back from the States. “Also, my parents are waiting.”

Aaron grins. “What a good kid.”

“Always on double duty to make up for this one here,” I nod over at Minhyun, who laughs a clean cloud of a laugh. A puff of air, all the same note, always executed the same way.

The sound of Minhyun’s laugh fills me with cosmic relief. Even if everything is going to change, at least that won’t.

“See you later,” Minhyun says, and opens the car door.

“See you later,” I say.  

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for waiting so patiently for another chapter. It’s been just a little under three months since the last chapter, which also took around three months to write. I promise, the end is in sight. 
> 
> Work and real life aside, which are always excuses for doing what one wants to do. This chapter took a long time and multiple revisions because I realized that I was telling it from the wrong POV. It had been written in Minhyun’s view first, and my editor told me there were too many repetitions of previous themes and previous moments, and that we needed to move on. I knew I needed to move on, too. But after the previous chapter with Jonghyun’s revelation, I was totally spent. And to be honest, I was scared that whatever I moved onto wouldn’t be right, or wouldn’t be good enough. So I took a month off from writing — and from fandom — to learn some new things, like Japanese, and travel to new places, like Greece. 
> 
> Doing these things gave me fresh perspective. I wasn’t doing them for Double Blind, but I knew that sometimes in order to become unstuck, I had to acquire new experiences. Otherwise I’d just be repeating the same themes and moments before. They might work, but they wouldn’t be advancing the story. Or my ability to write a good story. I was sad to say goodbye to Double Blind for a while. I hoped and trusted that it’d come back to me when it came back to me. 
> 
> And did it ever! I was getting antsy because the whole time I was away, I’d been waiting for inspiration to strike. It was only on the flight from Athens back to San Francisco that inspiration — and urgency! — finally struck. And the outpour was electrifying. Two chapters came to me, like from a fever dream. The end draws near. 
> 
> When things come full circle, you end up right where you started, but somehow with the feeling that you never expected for it to happen. Isn’t it funny? Writing Scientific Methods so far has been like leaving 00:00 and coming back full circle. At 6:00 you couldn’t believe you started out at 00:00, and at 12:00 you think you know what’s going on, but you’re only halfway through. After this eleventh chapter, I’m in the eleventh hour of this story’s development. I can see 00:00 back in sight. But oh, how things have changed! 
> 
> Thank you, dear reader, for reading with me and changing with me. I hope you’ll stick around for the next chapter, and the chapter after that. The end is in sight, after all.


	12. Interlude: The Space Cadets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On June 17, 2017, the members of Nu’est met for dinner. The topic that no one wanted to speak of that everyone had on his mind: _what would become of them now?_

 

 

 

 

The space cadets were headed straight into a black hole.

They hoped that there would be something on the other side of the black hole. That it was just a facade for a portal. But all the signs said it was just a dead zone. Nothing beyond the black but nothingness itself, stretched thin over an infinite funnel of spacetime.

Eternal surface area.

This was not how they planned to go.

They’d been aboard this spaceship for the last seven hundred years. Even though they had enough supplies to last them for a thousand years or so, somewhere along the way they blew through the supplies and ended up at eight hundred.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Their ship was being inexorably pulled past the black hole’s event horizon, one gravitational bit at a time.  


#  


There were a few times they could have course corrected. Once, they had an ambitious idea for solar sails. No other ships had done solar sails combined with particle electron jump turbines before. Too bad it backfired. The solar sails ripped, and they had to spend fifteen cycles repairing the ship.

“It’ll be okay,” the captain stated. “It was a gamble, and it didn’t work, but we learned from our mistakes and we’ll do better next time.”

To boost everyone’s morale, the captain invested in a paint job and some new equipment for the ship, including a cannon blaster and an EMP noise engine (designed to ward off the worst space bugs).

The captain had convinced the space bankers to fund this retrofit because they believed that ship branding drove merc bookings and revenues. "All right," said the space bankers. "But don't screw it up again." 

Following the retrofit, the space cadets planned to make up for lost time by swinging themselves around the supermassive gas giant known as M40. By using the planet's gravity, they'd catapult themselves back onto course.

But then they blew out one of the fuel cells while swerving around an asteroid in M40’s orbit, nearly crashing into the planet itself. Only by diverting all the fuel—old fashioned, non-solar fuel—that had been reserved for the escape pods, save for one—did they escape with their lives.

“That might have been a little bit ambitious,” the diva sniped. He was especially irritated because he was sweaty. 

The expatriate with bushy eyebrows volunteered his opinion: “Guys, maybe we should play it safe for a while?”

The one with the muscles, known for his brunt force, just growled. “Agreed. Let’s just lay low on the fancy tricks.” This was spit at the captain. “I told you that leveraging supermassive gas giant gravitational swing wasn't our ‘thing.’”

He had reason to be grumpy. The ship was bad shape. Tales of the crew’s misadventures and misexpenditures had already spread around the universe. When the captain paid a visit to the space bankers, the space bankers drew the line. 

“You guys are on your own,” the space bankers said, and shut the doors. 

The captain managed to scrape together some funding via some special projects, including a planetary extermination of space bugs on Planet 009. But the bounty wasn't enough to justify the repairs. So the space cadets had to float for a while.

They were pretty hungry. 

“We’re just a bunch of second-rate mercs,” the diva cried.

“Guys, we should have never left home,” the expatriate moaned.

The captain nodded unconsciously. Brunt force whammed into his shoulder and he found himself pinned, looking up into disdain. 

“Are you kidding me?” the brunt force said.

"Hey now," said the space cadet, stepping forward.

But brunt force pushed him away. He looked the captain square in the eye and spoke slowly and deliberately. “If you’d stayed at home, you’d still be selling meat on a stick to strangers, set to the pale soundtrack of the ocean.“

“Or flipping old motorbikes with your no-good "buddy" from middle school,” the diva added, this one directed at the brunt force.

“Or just be writing the news—when, over the last few hundred years, we've been _making_  the news,” the expatriate chimed in.

“Hear, hear,” the space cadet clapped, happy that everyone was on the same page again. He was just happy to be on board, no matter what happened. It hurt him to see his friends suffering.  


#  
  
  
Their luck began to run out around the six hundredth year.

Money was running thin, which meant fuel was running thin. They knew that the space bankers were waiting for them to crash land on some moonforsaken asteroid in the podunk outer limits, asphyxiate, and then move in to dismantle their ship to sell the scrap.

It wasn’t clear whose idea exactly it was to embark on this voyage into the center of the universe. The potential for overexposure and cosmic irradiation was strong along the core of your galaxy, but solar energy potential was superdense. It was the power that kept all the stars spinning ‘round it, after all—the source of limitless energy and eternal beginnings.

Maybe it was an old wives' tale: that at the center of the universe was rumored to reside the sun of suns. At the center of the universe there would be enough energy for all their fuel cells.

_Ever._

It’d been a long time since the space cadets were close to the core of the galaxy. Stars glowed a little different, planets too. New inhabitants with different tastes had emerged. Their particular banner-waving tactics looked a little old and dated compared to other upstart mercs, but there were still beneficiaries who remembered their old exploits and welcomed their return with open arms. _We’ll support you all the way_ , their old fans said, and helped them in ports along the way.

Gravity grew stronger the closer to the center the space cadets got. “This is it,” they whooped and cheered. “We’ll be right near the suns of suns soon.”

They were soon racing past the stars and planets without having to even turn on a single fuel cell. “This is it,” they whooped and cheered. “We’re at cruising altitude, baby. It’s easy sailing from here.”

But then they realized why they were moving so quickly and smoothly.

At the center of the galaxy was a supermassive black hole.

 

#

 

The space cadet ducked into the escape pod, where the captain had summoned him. “What are you doing? We're all waiting for you up top."

The diva and brunt force had siphoned the rest of the raki from the fuel cells and the diva had already festooned the starboard with streamers and a giant disco ball. Karaoke was about to begin.

“We’re headed for sure disaster,” the captain said in short, clipped tones. “And I’ve made up my mind. I want you to get out of here while you still can. I was running diagnostics. There’s enough fuel in this escape pod to get you all the way to the nearest biome.” A biome was a planet with all the essentials for creating life. The space cadet could see what kind of point the captain was trying to make. But he held his tongue, watching the captain fidget with the console.

It was comforting to watch the captain work. He was remarkably diligent. He never missed a step. Whether it was making an omelet or programming a self-destruct mechanism into a reticent AI, you could trust the captain to get it done. Even if he got tired, he would just double down ten times as hard to finish the job. So the captain was easy to love for his character, but also hard to love because he didn’t let anyone close to him. He was a shy person, at his very core. The space cadet took a step closer.

“Why me?” 

“You’ve always been the most popular at port. I think you’ll be the best candidate for continuing life with the womenkind on the planet.”

“So will you come with me?”

The captain blanched. “You’d have me desert my crew?”

“Well, aren’t I your crew? You’d still be my captain, albeit a captain to one.”

For being the voice of reason, sometimes the captain would find himself at a loss with the space cadet’s particular brand of rationality.

“Remember the principle of net utility,” the captain gulped. “Here, I’d be serving three others. On the escape pod, I’d only be able to serve one.”

“That's me,” the space cadet hummed.

“That's you,” the captain confirmed.

“But if this ship is headed for sure disaster,” the space cadet countered, “then you’d be a captain to zero, for sure.”

It was very charming when the space cadet tilted his head and played his “naive witness” card, but this was not the time for witty repartee. “Don’t make me pull rank on you,” the captain growled. 

“What if I find help at the nearest port and come back for all of you?” 

“Don’t even think about it.” The captain turned his back on the space cadet and called up the system config on the console. It was all for show, though. The escape pod was already perfectly prepped.

“Please,” the space cadet said in a low voice, and the captain found himself wrapped in a warm embrace from behind.

“You can’t,” the captain said, his knees buckling under him, turning to cherry-flavored jelly.It had been hundreds of years since he had last let the space cadet whisper into his ear like this. It had been hundreds of years since he had let himself even imagine such a thing. “We can’t. Under the Decree of Professional Deepspace Species Relations for Intergalactic Harmony Provision Three Point One Five, we can't."

“But you’re not my captain anymore,” the space cadet whispered in the captain’s ear.

“Since when?” The captain gasped.

“Since you cast me away on an escape pod bound for the nearest planet and became a captain to minus one.”

“Minus one,” the captain moaned.

“That’s me,” the space cadet traced a finger along the captain’s jaw.

  
#  


The space cadets sang to relieve stress. That, at least, had never changed, no matter what alternate reality they were in.

Looking out the deck was a uniform and vast promenade of blackness that stretched as far as the eye could see. On the edges, the light of stars compressed in a thin, flat line: the event horizon.

 _It’s not the pale moon that excites me_  
_That thrills and delights me_  
_Oh no, it’s just the nearness of you_

“We had a good run,” they said, and hugged each other close.

 _Hold me close and hold me fast,_  they sang on.  


#

  
“Hey,” the diva said. “It’s late.”

“So?”

“Time for ghost stories.” The diva knocked back a shot of soju. “Something inspirational.”

“Inspirational?”

“Well, we’re going to be ghosts soon.”

“What a downer,” the brunt force muttered, and looked at the space cadet for validation. The space cadet shrugged.

“I’ll go first,” the expatriate ventured. “It’s a story about a Buddhist priest, who discovered something as he wandered the edge of a certain pond every day.”

“Was it a frog?” The brunt force heckled. The space cadet shushed him.

“The priest spent his time muttering sutras to himself,” the expat continued.

“Sounds like our captain,” the diva laughed. The expatriate rolled his eyes, took another shot of soju, and continued.

 

_Ghost Story 1: The Old Man and The Priest_

 

“One day an old man appears to the priest. The old man says he is the ghost of a warrior whose head had been cut off and washed into this very pond two hundred years before. The priest almost craps his pants he’s so scared, and he runs away. He stays up all night mediating on his fear until he realizes that there’s nothing to be scared of. He goes back to the pond the next day and prays for the warrior’s soul. Maybe there’s a reason that the warrior showed up, after all.”

“Then what?” The diva prodded.

“Well, in the middle of the priest’s prayers, the warrior shows up in full battle gear. He gets another chance to tell his story. So while the priest is chanting his sutras, which he has to do in order to forge the spiritual connection that lets the warrior bridge the channel between life and death, the warrior tells his tale. About how he was an old man when he went into battle, but how he hid his age by dyeing his hair and beard black so he could fight along with the young men. How it was worth it so that he could die in glorious battle instead of wasting away in old age. And after the warrior finishes the story, he vanishes into thin air.”

“And?” The diva prodded again.

“That’s it.”

“That was boring,” the diva sniffed in disappointment. “Let me tell a sexier one.”

“Fine,” the expatriate sighed.

 

_Ghost Story 2: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World_

 

“So! Listen up, everyone. This story is about the most beautiful girl in the world. Skin as white as the moon, hair as black as the night, lips as red as cherries. The kind of beautiful girl who’d be discovered immediately and shipped overnight to the emperor to become his consort. It was a good life for her and he loved having someone so beautiful around. But her life was short. She died of some ancient affliction, like food poisoning.”

“It’s really too bad,” the space cadet shook his head, whispering into the captain’s ear. “We live in much better times.”

“Is that it?” The brunt force yelped in disgust. “What kind of story was that?”

“I’m not done, dummy. _Ghost story,_ remember?

“So the emperor sends a Taoist priest to search for her soul to the ends of the earth. They had some really good times, and he thinks if he can bring her back to life, the good times can continue. The emperor contracts an alchemist to build a special glass bottle that can hold souls. Then the emperor gives the Taoist priest this bottle and instructs the priest to do what he needs to do to capture her in the bottle and come back to court ASAP. A little cruel, but emperors back in the day weren’t democratically elected, so they had no obligation to be nice or respect people’s free will.

Anyways, the priest wanders for basically forever, asking everyone he passes if they’ve seen the ghost of a girl with the whitest skin and the blackest hair and the reddest lips anywhere. He gets a few bum tips. Buckets disappearing from their coops, a blight that hit a crop of bananas. Doesn’t sound like the girl. But then he gets a tip that the dormant volcano at the center of the island has been acting up—and the locals think it’s being possessed by an angry god.

There are prophecies that the god in the volcano will punish the emperor for his wantonness by sieging the realm. When the locals find out that our protagonist is a priest, they beg him to go appease the volcano spirit. Despite the priest’s protests that the volcano hasn’t erupted in thousands of years, the locals lure him into it. They throw a goodbye party for him and ply him with wine and liquor and send their most beautiful girls to seduce him into going. So eventually he’s persuaded to go up the volcano.

Well, at the top of the volcano, who does he see but a beautiful maiden? She checks all the boxes: whitest skin, blackest hair, reddest lips. She’s singing to herself as she bathes nude in a pool of sulfuric acid. The priest is pretty sure the volcano is active, not dormant, with the way the ground is smoking up his sandals something fierce. But the emperor said he’d cut the priest’s head off if he didn’t come with the bottle filled with something.

The priest takes a seat on the least hot-looking rock and calls out to the maiden. This is probably the dead maiden that was the consort of the emperor—only a demon or a spirit could be withstand these conditions. In a pool of sulfuric acid at the top of an active volcano.

She turns around, surprised that anyone has made it up this far. The priest tells her he’s been sent to find a maiden on behalf of the emperor. The maiden cries tears of the joy that the emperor is seeking her and sings the emperor’s praises. With every salacious story she tells about how the emperor rocked her world, the volcano shakes a little. Lava bubbles up from the cracks in the earth.

The priest starts to sweat, and not just because it’s hot. The sun is starting to rise and the rock is burning a hole in his sandals. And he’s not sure how to capture her in a bottle if she won’t leave the sulfuric pool she’s bathing in. And to be honest, his resolve is dissolving pretty quick. She’s too beautiful, too persuasive, and with her erotic stories, she’s rocking his world. Is it love? And if it is, does that mean he’ll just let her kill him?

Oblivious to his existential despair, the maiden reveals in song, a secret promise that she and the emperor made when she was alive.

_If we meet next in the heavens, we pray to be a pair of doves, every flying wing to wing._

She gets up from the pool, dancing on land. This is the priest’s chance to catch her in the bottle, but he can’t bring himself to do it. His sandals, fused with his feet from the heat, root him to the spot. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to move.

_If we meet again in the oceans, we pray to become as the currents and the winds, whipped into a frenzy._

She promises to be with the emperor again. The volcano rumbles and the cracks in the ground widen. Storm clouds gather in the sky as she continues to sing. Steam hisses out of the cracks.

_If we meet again on the land, we pray to become one with the earth, with you buried in me in death as you loved me in life._

And then, just as the sun peels over the edge of the horizon, she sings her last note—and the volcano erupts. The priest can only watch her as the force of her love for the emperor splits open the mountain and unleashes its passion onto the realm.”

“So what happened then?” The expatriate asked, a little breathlessly.

“To the priest? Well, as she sang, he became one with her story. While the volcano exploded around him, the priest accepted his fate.”

“And what about the emperor?” The brunt force asked. “What happened to him?”

“What do you think?” The diva laughed. “Did the maiden’s song—and the locals’ prophecy—come true?”

A collective hum. Outside, the stars clattered against the window of the hull as you all hurtled closer to death’s edge.

“I’ve got one,” the space cadet says. “It goes like this.”

 

_Ghost Story 3: The Prince and the Knight_

 

“This is the story of a Prince and his Knight. Born at the same time in different parts of the palace, the Prince and his Knight grow up like brothers at court, drinking deep every happiness their life has to offer. In the spring of their fifteenth year, they make a blood vow underneath the pink of the cherry trees by the river. Cutting their palms with the sharp edge of a river stone, they swear to never be parted.

Alas, as a skilled warrior, the Knight is summoned into battle for his sire. Not even can the Prince can spare him this duty. They bid each other tearfully on the eve of the Knight’s departure and vow to meet again within the year, by the river underneath the cherry trees.

The Knight battles in campaign after campaign. A skilled warrior, the Knight makes every man second to his blade. It turns from summer to autumn, then autumn to winter, and at last, spring comes and with it, the first blossom of pink on the trees. By now, the Knight is across the ocean, too far from the palace to return to the riverside on horseback. Torn between his promise to his Prince and to his duty, the Knight makes his belly second to his blade.

Freed from his body, the Knight’s spirit flies to the edge of the river before the day is done. The sun sets and the breezes whisper through the boughs of the cherry trees. The moon moves toward the west and rests upon the tops of the trees. When he turns his head, there is the Prince, surrounded by a faction of silent attendants. The Prince smiles. The attendants lay out the tatami mats and set the table with sake. The tatami mats are sumptuous and fragrant and the night, clear and cool.

The Knight warms his hands around a cup of sake. Usually he does not drink. Yet there are times when a cup of sake is impossible to resist. On a moonlit night, with the river before him and the Prince at his side, it increases all the pleasures of the moment to bring out the sake cups and settle down to talk serenely together over a drink. He remembers the other times they drank like this. What a delight it was, to sit across from his friend in a cozy nook in the palace in the winter, roasting food over the coals, hidden from the world outside!

“What burdens your mind?” The Prince asks his friend. The Knight shakes his head.

 _Pretending to drink_  
_Sake from this cup  
A mouthful of pink petals._

As the night winds to a close and a sliver of gold threatens to spill over the edge of the river, the Prince turns to the Knight with a sad look in his eye. “I know what you did to be here.”

The Knight has no words. The Prince reaches for his hand. For a moment, the Knight can feel its warmth. It dissolves into his hand like the tingles of a hot bath on a winter day. But how could it be? He looks into his friend’s eyes and past them, sees the other side of the world. The sun peels open, one irresistible beam of gold unfolding after another. The air shimmering, The Knight and the Prince vanish into the morning mist.”

There are tears in the captain’s eyes. The space cadet catches his breath and rubs the back of his head in embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he says, mostly to the captain. “Was that too sad?”

“Really pretty, actually,” the diva sniffs.  


#

 

The sound of light shards hitting the console had been the white noise that had set them to sleep. They were slumped over the main console, drunkenness the only thing edging out the feeling that their subatomic bonds were being stretched to their utmost limits.The only light came from the disco ball, still winking out bits of prismatic fervor from its facets. It was just blackness all around the windows, ever-cracking from the heat and the pressure of being so far in the Void.

 

And from the Void: a light, devil-may-care voice. “What's up, guys.” The Void reverberated around the ship like a state-of-the-art surround sound system, trebles, midtones, and bass all perfectly balanced. “Didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”

At this, the space cadets struggled awake. “What? Why?”

“Well, it just seemed like you were doing pretty okay.”

“How can you say that? We’re headed for sure disaster, for _sure_ ,” the captain jumped up, vision swimming and heart pounding furiously.

“Well, if you say so,” the Void said, unfurling a scroll of popular hits. “Though I guess it means you haven’t seen this yet.”

And they looked. 

”But how can this be?” The space cadets cried. “All the signals were pointing to sure disaster. Definite extinction. Absolute death.”

“Well,” said the Void, “maybe that’s true for _some cases_. Some things have to die to make way for new things, after all. But I think you guys just found yourself on the wrong side of the wormhole.“ And with that, the Void folded his tally of popular hits back into his coat pocket and disappeared backstage.

In his wake, a trail of petals, and a path to the light.

  
  
  
 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ghost stories seemed befitting of an update posted close to Halloween.
> 
> Can you believe it’s been over a year since the Nu’est boys “graduated” from Produce 101? And look where they are now. Every single reality show ever! Traveling overseas! Getting buff! And Vogue Korea! 
> 
> Putting the finishing touches on the Scientific Methods series has been a wonderful experience. I hope you’ll look forward to the next 2 chapters: the final chapter, and the epilogue. I hope to publish the last chapter on Christmas Eve — that’ll be the one year anniversary of _Double Blind_. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading. <3


	13. Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Do you think God was nervous right before he created the world?_

 

 

“Jonghyun, we’re here.”

Jonghyun blinks to gets his bearings. The van has stopped. They are idling in front of the Studio. There is an afterparty waiting for them. His belly full of barbeque, his head full of beer, his eyes full of sleep.

They were drinking earlier, that’s right.

 

#

 

They had met up for dinner. It was hard to say who had the darkest expression out of them going into the restaurant. Dongho had his face buried in his phone, and Minki couldn’t stop crying. None of them usually enjoyed alcohol with the exception of Aaron, but they ordered drinks and once the some threshold had been passed the drinks didn’t stop coming.

“Are you okay?” Minhyun had whispered in his ear. Jonghyun was sure he was flushed red and teetering from the drink and that was why Minhyun was asking and looking so worried.

“I’ll be fine,” he’d said. He brought his hand to Minhyun’s thigh and gave it a squeeze. “After this,” Jonghyun said, “I want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Minhyun said quietly. Neither of them missed the look from Minki: an eyebrow arched high, pointed expression ready to pounce. But before he could say anything, Dongho shouted that their agent had just texted them in the group chat.

They had gotten interview requests from every major news outlet. Booking from variety shows were coming in. It was too much to even hope for. Their drinking gained speed. Turning from a death march to a Dionysian blur of joy-induced delirium.

 _Maybe_ _we’ll_ _be_ _okay after all_.

It was only thanks to Minhyun’s wristwatch alarm that they realized they were running late for the Produce 101 afterparty at the dorms.

 

#

 

“Did he black out?” Aaron whispers from the passenger’s seat back to the others in the van. “Already? This show has made you guys even weaker.”

“Jonghyun’s a lightweighth,” Dongho giggles.

“Not just him, None of us could _ever_ hold our drink,” Minki croons. “C’mon,” Minki shakes Dongho, who is dozing next to him. “We gotta go.”

Minhyun gets out too, but keeps the door open on his side. He extends a hand to Jonghyun to help him out of the middle seat. Jonghyun takes it. ”See you guys back at the apartment,” Aaron calls after them. The van kicks out of idle and drives off.

Minhyun and Jonghyun hang back, walking slower than Minki and Dongho. The lobby of the Studio lobby is dark. It‘s not usually lit at this hour. Just a weak green flicker coming from the security guard’s break room; an old TV playing soaps. No lights around the track, either.

How many times had Jonghyun taken off for that track at the break of day? And yet Minhyun has never retraced those steps. If there were any time to do it, it would be now.

It‘s warm. A strange heat one would find in a pocket of summer hidden in late September. Unexpected and beautiful for its rarity. Gone by tomorrow.

“Hi,” Minhyun whispers.

“Hi,” Jonghyun whispers back.

“You okay?”

“Just didn’t expect that to happen,” Jonghyun says. “How is _Yoboseyo_ charting again?”

“I’m not sure it’s real, either,” Minhyun says. “But here we are.”

There was something about the way Minhyun intones *but here we are *that cradles Jonghyun’s heart. “Let’s walk?”

“Yes,” Minhyun says.

Out on the field across from the Studio you can actually see the stars. Jonghyun starts with his hands behind his back, head tilted up. Starlight, blue and faint, bathes his cheeks and his eyelids and the tip of his nose. He’s beautiful in the way that old men were beautiful once. Minhyun closes his eyes and pictures Jonghyun old and young, back and forth.

The lights of the city barely reach them here. Just the faintest edge of indigo around the rims of clouds but nothing else to suggest the city is anything but an abstraction. All around them is quiet.

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun says finally. “I’m happy. I’m happy we made it this far. I’m happy to be here with you.”

“Me too,” Minhyun replies. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, steeling himself, and maybe he is. Yes, he is. Steeling himself because he‘s realized, in a kind of belated way, that this is as far as his unshakable resolve has ever gotten him, that this was as far into the future as he’s ever let himself see. After this, he doesn’t know anything.

And yet the night is gentle, so Minhyun isn’t worried.

Jonghyun wishes that he had read more, or paid more attention in school. Because knowing how to love someone is different from admiring them. He doesn’t have a script for what he’s about to do. Just a series of hunches that he has to follow as blindly as the path from one star to another. Admiration has always asked little of him, save for a lively imagination, and that’s where he’s always felt comfortable. This much he knows: that the problems will only emerge when they become real.

But at the end of it, life if just one problem after the other. At least this is one he can choose to have.

“Can I tell you something?” Jonghyun starts, after they’ve walked a quarter of a lap around the track.

Minhyun nods. Feeling his chest squeeze tight. His lungs a narrow passageway to another world inside him. Every sense of his comes on red alert, like a spaceship on fire. His whole life has been one big loop of deja vu, moments on repeat. The promise of something yet to come. And now that it’s here, he needs to keep his eyes wide open. He can’t miss a thing, not now.

Jonghyun clears his throat. “It’s sort of hard to talk about. And I haven’t thought quite about how to say it, so it might be clumsy. Actually, scratch that, it _will_ be clumsy.”

“You can tell me anything,” Minhyun says. “It’s just me.”

“It’s just you?” Jonghyun looks away. “That makes it harder, not easier.”

“Jonghyunnie,” Minhyun teases, even though his breath is a flutter too. “Are you nervous?”

”Do you think God was nervous right before he created the world?” Jonghyun says. Minhyun laughs softly. He doesn’t know if Jonghyun is saying what he thinks he’s saying.

“I think it’s just humans who get nervous,” Minhyun says. “Because we don’t know what will happen.“

Jonghyun shakes his head, but it’s in agreement. That much Minhyun understands.

“It’s hard,” Jonghyun says, “to know what to do, when I don’t know what’s going to happen. Is it better for me to do something or do not do anything? Things always feel safer in my head, not out in the world. And that’s where I still struggle as a leader and as a friend. What should I do here? What should I do there? I get stuck. Maybe more than other people.”

“I know,” Minhyun says gently.

“But when it was made the universe didn’t ask any questions. It just was.”

“That might be the key to happiness.”

Jonghyun walks a little faster, and Minhyun widens his stride to keep pace. ”I’ve always envied you,” Jonghyun says. “You were always more comfortable with yourself and your ideas than me. You’ve always been the most sure about who you are.”

“It may be because I don’t think much about who I am,” Minhyun replies.

Jonghyun snorts. ”For someone who takes as many selfies as you, that’s hard to believe.”

“I guess,” Minhyun says.

“Well, if you don’t think about who you are, then what do you usually think about?”

“I don’t keep track of too much, except when it comes to important things. Though these days, you’ve been on my mind more than usual.”

“More than usual?” Jonghyun repeats.

“More than usual,” Minhyun replies.

Jonghyun clears his throat, embarrassed. Minhyun has always said saccharine things—half in jest and yet completely sincere. With no one around but them, Jonghyun’s eyes slide to the horizon and he lets himself bask in Minhyun’s words and what they mean. “I wish I was more like you,” he ends up saying.

“And I wish I were more like you,” Minhyun echoes. “But maybe it’s better this way, to be a little bit lacking.”

A part of Jonghyun flinches, but he knows Minhyun is right.

“If we had no weaknesses, we wouldn’t need others,” Minhyun continues. “All of what we have been able to do as human beings—isn’t that just all so we don’t get frozen to death or swept away in a tornado? It’s why we put animals to work, why we build such tall buildings, why we’ve created everything that we have. We’re the most bare out of all the animals.”

“The most bare.” Jonghyun holds out his arms to look at them. Always smaller than he’s wanted them, at times bordering on scrawny. He keeps them covered for a reason. ”No shells, no hard plates. The only hardness we have is the kind we can build around ourselves.”

Minhyun grins. Is that a touch of self-awareness from his friend? “Yes. We build up lots of structures so that we don’t get washed away or die of exposure. Our bare skin and faces are why we also seek each other out and work together against the odds.”

”And what are the odds now?” Jonghyun asks softly, but it’s not a question to Minhyun.

Out under the cover of the deep navy sky it becomes possible to voice the thoughts inside one’s head. The boundary between inside and outside open up and in darkness, pieces rearrange themselves, switch places, turn into one another. Minhyun tries to keep the expectation and hope out of his heart, free of assumption. All he knows is that Jonghyun wants to _tell him something. Something about the beginning of the universe, something about the odds._ Minhyun closes his eyes and thinks about what Jonghyun said. _Bare-skinned creatures._

“Seoul was a strange place. Of course it’s very similar to Busan in many ways. The people are still Korean, so it’s not like I moved to Johannesberg or Ho Chih Minh City. If that happened, then I’d be really lost. Still, Seoul was confusing. It was a lot easier to just be with Nu’est than it was to try and understand Seoul, or even Pledis.”

“How did you know that was the right thing to understand?”

“I don’t know.” Minhyun tilts his head up to the sky, feels a stretch in his neck, around his Adam’s apple. He leans into the feeling. “Maybe I knew I’d meet someone like you.”

“Someone like me.”

They approach the bleachers on the far end of the track. From here, they can see the facade of the Studio and the dorms behind it. Most of the lights are off, but there are some windows that show a sliver of yellow. The afterparty, where they will find themselves later. Minhyun presses his tongue up against the tips of his teeth. It is difficult imagining themselves in a place that is not _here_.

Jonghyun tugs on Minhyun’s sleeve and guides him to the bleachers, where they sit down. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

Minhyun blinks slowly. “For what?”

“For a lot of things,” Jonghyun blurts out. “For not knowing how to be a leader. Or a good friend. Or anything else, really. For saying that career was the only thing that mattered. When—when I actually thought it through, that wasn’t right at all. And I hurt you because I was being an idiot.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Minhyun says. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Jonghyun.”

“Don’t I, though?” Jonghyun says. A momentary darkness darker than the night passes over his face. Minhyun holds his breath and waits for the moment to pass.

“Why do you like me, Minhyun?”

“Fishing for compliments?” Minhyun smiles. Covers his face with both hands and laughs. “Kim Jonghyun. You are not just a person I like. You’re a person I love.”

The words hang in the air, imbuing it with a midnight shimmer. How everything can change so much in a few seconds while it appears to stay the same is something Jonghyun will never be able to explain. It’s just the two of them sitting in the dark. Nothing new. And yet.

“I am?” A croak.

“Of course.”

“But how.”

“But how do I love you?”

Jonghyun nods.

“In every way.”

“Even like,“ and Jonghyun’s voice stops in his throat. He can’t imagine. It is too fantastic to fathom.

“Even like that,” Minhyun says quickly, ears burning. “I wish all the time that—I just want to hold you, Jonghyun. If you’d let me, I’d hold you always.”

Minhyun’s hands tremble at his sides, but he keeps them flat against the wood of the bench. His fingers numb and tingle. It feels like a part of him will vanish from this world only to appear in a world even more real than this one. The blood roars in his ears, both sides loud. The seas part. The miles and miles of earth between them open to reveal the world’s undulating, shifting, molten core.

Jonghyun’s voice comes from somewhere low. “I always want to get my way. I don’t like people. I don’t make jokes that anyone laughs at. I’m shy. I’m not smart and I don’t like to read anything besides _manhwa_. I’d rather spend my weekends playing video games than going out. I work too much but I’m still not the best at anything. Sometimes, I disappear into my own world and forget how to come out. And I’ve—I’ve got nothing in my bank account, Minhyun. I’ve barely got anything for a life of my own.”

“And I,” Minhyun’s voice catches. “I’m not the smartest person either. I can’t remember what happened yesterday, let alone the week before. And I don’t know how to do anything except sing. If Nu’est disappeared tomorrow, I don’t know what I’d do. But Jonghyun, I know you. I know. And it’s always been you, and so I know that as long as you’re there somewhere in the world, I’ll be all right. And I’ve got nothing either except me.” Suddenly shy, aware that he’s rambling, Minhyun whispers—“if that’s okay with you.”

Jonghyun nods and brushes Minhyun’s hair back so he can really look at his face. Minhyun’s gaze, expansive and deep, like the sky full of stars that has been here all along. Jonghyun trails his fingertips the side of Minhyun’s neck to where Minhyun’s pulse flutters. Underneath the skin, hot to the touch, is Minhyun’s blood, Minhyun’s heart. How many times has it beaten from the moment he came into the world?

“Jonghyun,” his name is whispered, and Jonghyun is undressed, made naked under the wide expanse of sky, made anew. In that moment he doesn’t want it to just be _okay_ anymore. He doesn’t want to just _get_ _by._

“You’ve waited for me so long,” Jonghyun’s eyes burn with desperate relief. His chin and lips tremble. What Minhyun can do to him simply by existing. “I wish you hadn’t had to.”

Minhyun shakes his head—more scared than he has ever been his whole life, more certain than he has ever been his whole life, he tries to put words to what he’s known since he was ten and disappeared in the Bangtaesan forest. That the world shown to him all those years ago had been waiting for him here the whole time. Minhyun laughs to himself, self-conscious in the dark. His heart thumps in his chest, beating almost painfully. Tachycardia. Breathlessness. Here on the cusp of so many truths, he realizes how much he has missed Jonghyun. “I’m happy just sitting next to you like this,” Minhyun says. “Just to be by your side. And it’s okay, Jonghyun. It was the only way. Time only goes one direction, but this is what I can do. I can love you now, and I can love you until I’m gone, and in the life after that, I can love you then.”

“Minhyun.”

Minhyun‘s fingers pursue scant movements on his lap. Hauntingly, as if separated from his hand, they move toward Jonghyun. Compelling, trembling fingers. They come to a rest on Jonghyun’s knee, squeezing lightly. Jonghyun closes his eyes and wishes. Where did time go? It isn’t here, it isn’t anywhere that he can see or smell or touch or hear. And yet time is all there is. Like a length of cloth that rolls on and on, that folds everything into its path.

“Can I kiss you, Jonghyun?”

Jonghyun opens his eyes. “Yes.”

 

#

 

You think about the sea that must have covered this place hundreds of millions of years ago, the slow evaporation, the mud turned to stone, civilization rising from nothing. Nothing calm. In this life and in the next, nothing is finished. Nothing will ever be finished.

Here, it’s just the two of you in the dark, your breaths mingling, your hands touching, happier than you could ever be on your own. Here, you are more than your names and more than yourselves and more than the time and space you borrow.

Eventually, you pick yourselves up and take the long way back.

Through the studio entrance and down a winding hall a warm light shines through a door. On the other side are the glowing, joyous faces of so many of your friends. Friends who have been with you through so much. Friends you might not see again for a long time. Friends for whom you will wait.

 _You_ _made_ _it,_ they chorus.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to perkybird/@jjjear for the beta and the wise and insightful comments on the characters, their behavior and psychology. This chapter was truly a joint effort. 
> 
> And thank _you_ for reading. 
> 
> We’d love to know what you thought of the latest chapter, so if you have time, we’d sure appreciate your thoughts. In the meantime—onward to the last chapter. See you there.


	14. Particles and Waves

 

 

 

It’s the kind of hazy afternoon that stretches on. The kind of afternoon where you might fall asleep and wake up one hundred years later to find that the world has already moved on without you.

#

 _  
Just a year and then some_ , their manager had said, his tone somewhere between consolation and business as usual. _Time flies. You’ll see each other soon._

In uncharacteristic fashion, it’s taken Minhyun all day to pack two bags when among the five of them he’s usually the first one done. Minhyun’s strategy entails either A) everything and the kitchen sink or B) the bare essentials. Today, he’s taken his time deliberately choosing what goes in.

Jonghyun sits on the edge of the bed, fiddling with the ties on his sweatpants as he watches Minhyun finish packing. Minhyun is wearing a thin white t-shirt which clings to his collarbones. The material drapes loose, half-tucked into a worn pair of jeans. His feet are bare, ankles showing underneath the rolled-up cuffs of his jeans, and his thighs push against the denim as he squats down to zip up his suitcase. Jonghyun catches himself staring, and looks away.

“What?” Minhyun asks, hearing Jonghyun’s mirthless chuckles.

“You’re not even moving to a different country,” Jonghyun says. “But somehow it feels like you’re going to the moon.”

And for Minhyun’s trip to the moon, he’s got all the basics: t-shirt and linen pants for the summer that remains, folded neatly on one side. Two light jackets: a denim number Minhyun bought in Tokyo three years ago and a khaki jacket gifted by a fan in their _Yoboseyo_  days. Toiletries in a ziplock bag. Socks and underwear folded into a separate pouch and nestled in a corner of the suitcase. Charging cables tucked in their own drawstring pouch, hair products in another pouch. In the other suitcase, an assortment of his favorite snacks—as if they wouldn’t have food, where he’s going—books that he may or may not have time to read, a journal that he’s kept on and off since he got it three years ago; an old water bottle, a sticker pack that Minki gifted him last year; his full-sized pillow, a few sweaters, one wool coat. There is nothing in Minhyun’s suitcase that would suggest that he is doing anything other than going on a long holiday.

“One small step for me,” Minhyun says, rolling his suitcases to the front of the room. “One great leap for Nu’est.”

Jonghyun huffs. “Just make sure you don’t stay up there forever.”

“There’s not enough oxygen in outer space,” Minhyun says. “So I’ll be back to get my real winter clothes once the season changes.”

“You think they’ll let you out? This is YMC we’re talking about.”

“Don’t pout, Jonghyunnie.”

Minhyun’s voice is teasing but there is an edge to it that makes Jonghyun fall quiet. “I know the others have gone ahead to dinner, but—“ Minhyun says. “Let’s not go. Yet.”

Jonghyun nods, sure that his nerves give themselves away on his face, in the sudden brightness of his eyes. Dusk filters through the blinds and paints the room in vertical strips. There is something about the heat and the heavy atmosphere it creates that makes Jonghyun feel like he’s under water or deep inside a memory. A bead of sweat balances atop Minhyun’s cupid’s bow; Jonghyun’s bangs fall slightly damp on his forehead. Neither of them move.

“We finally have the chance to make things right,” Jonghyun says. “Things have changed for our group. When you’re gone, we’ll work hard too. And make Nu’est a group you won’t be ashamed of.”

Minhyun shakes his head and presses his palms to his eyes. “You don’t need to say things like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like we’re at a funeral.” Minhyun smiles a quiet smile to himself. “I haven’t left.”

Here is Minhyun before him and yet already gone. Tall frame already slipping effortlessly from studio to studio, from hotel to hotel, from train to train, from cab to cab, from screen to screen, traveling through time and space until he’s across the room from Jonghyun once more.

“Not yet,” Jonghyun whispers.

There is the heartbeat of a pause, a suffocating infinity as Jonghyun bites back tears and Minhyun’s lips part on something unsaid. A rhythm rises in Minhyun’s chest, the suggestion of restraint pushing against adrenaline, feeling its chemical edges blossoming, cell against cell.

For a moment they stare at each other. Then Minhyun crosses the gap between them to kneel at Jonghyun’s feet. His eyes dark on Jonghyun’s face. He takes Jonghyun’s hands and raises them to his lips. Kisses each one of Jonghyun’s knuckles, and then his fingertips. Jonghyun can feel everything. His breath running shallow, body strung like a bow, like the whole of him is encased in an incandescent halo.

“Can we—” Minhyun asks, when he feels like he’s on the knife’s edge of shattering. “Jonghyun, can I hold you?“

Jonghyun nods and reaches for Minhyun’s waist, pushing through the years-old self-consciousness prickling at his skin, through the denial that had always stayed his hand and schooled his expression stony. He brings hands to Minhyun’s back, his fingers seeking out the knobs of Minhyun’s spine, Minhyun’s shoulders, the curve of his back, the cut of his shoulder blades enveloped under the filmy slip of cotton t-shirt, here for him to touch—and all he can do is laugh at how his face burns, how innocent he is, how innocent he doesn’t want to be, how time is standing still, how Minhyun’s hands embracing him are trembling just as hard.

“You know, that week you came to Busan, and we came back from the arcade,” Minhyun says, lips ghosting against Jonghyun’s ear, “I wanted to kiss you in front of my house.”

Jonghyun’s breath hitches, heart lurching backwards, dragging him back in time to that bittersweet moment, in the foyer in Busan in the winter, with Minhyun bent down on one knee to untie his shoelaces and a promise of _forever_  freshly spoken. He cups a hand around the back of Minhyun’s head. “I wish you had. It might have helped me set my head straight.”

“I do, too,” Minhyun laughs, burying his face in Jonghyun’s hair, shutting his eyes to the rush of heat that runs through him at the scent of Jonghyun’s scalp. It smells like his shampoo, a faint memory of something milky and salty and fresh and green.

“Let’s fix that now,” Jonghyun says. He pulls back to press his lips to the corner of Minhyun’s.

The resulting adrenaline shoots through his body and jolts him fully awake despite the haze of desire that he habitually arbitrates into purgatory, now vivid in its urgency and Jonghyun can’t keep the groan in his throat nor the shake from his thighs nor the wetness from his mouth as he presses his lips to Minhyun’s again and—

And Minhyun, _fuck_ , opens his mouth to Jonghyun like he’s been waiting for it his whole life. Jonghyun moans. He can feel Minhyun’s heart beat in his tongue as it weighs against his own, and in his enthusiasm he—

“Yeow,” they flinch at the same time, as their teeth knock against each other. Jonghyun looks away, embarrassed, as does Minhyun.

“I’m not a very good kisser,” Jonghyun grumbles.

“But you’re supposed to be the more experienced of us,” Minhyun chides. Jonghyun wants to flick Minhyun’s nose for it. He also wants to rough him up so thoroughly and completely and exhaustively that Minhyun won’t have a mind for smart-aleck responses, to talk back, to think anything except Jonghyun’s name.

 _How is it that we’re both grinning like kids and yet about to do what we’re about to do?_ Jonghyun coughs. “You’re wrong. I need practice.”

“Are you sure?” Minhyun’s eyes flare bright.

“About what?”

“I’ve seen how you practice.” Minhyun replies, going hot for the way his imagination wrestles from self-restraint. His eyelashes dip heavy. “If you’re sure, I’m not going to hold myself back either.”

Jonghyun’s gaze goes dark at what he sees in Minhyun’s face and he wills a response that only sounds half as overheated as he feels. “Damn.”

It doesn’t make sense that he should be so desperate for all the time that he has been so patient, but the memory of Jonghyun’s confession during their final night at the Studio comes back to him. And the fact that this is their final time together alone until who knows when.

“Please,” Minhyun says. His fingers curl under the bottom edge of Jonghyun’s t-shirt and snake upward as he finds Jonghyun’s lips again. Jonghyun hisses through the kiss, shuddering at the friction and looping his fingers in Minhyun’s belt loops to pull the other in. Their hips slam together and they groan into each other’s mouths at the impact. Minhyun is pushing at Jonghyun’s shirt, urging it up and off, and then Jonghyun lets his hold on Minhyun’s belt loops go, drawing back for air as he pulls his t-shirt the rest of the way over his head and watching through red-tinged vision as Minhyun does the same. The neck of Minhyun’s t-shirt catches on his jaw and for a moment, the expanse of his torso, white and straining and taut, is bared for Jonghyun to see.

“Jesus, Minhyun,” he says as Minhyun’s shirt drops to the floor—and he means it as a laugh but it comes out raspy. “I wish we had more time.”

Minhyun makes a broken sound. The back of Jonghyun’s knees hit the edge of the bed and he drops his weight back over the bed, tumbling with the momentum, dragging Minhyun with him. Jonghyun is hot everywhere they touch, the whole line of his body pressed to Minhyun’s and Minhyun doesn’t try to pull away to reposition the tangle of their limbs, just presses his hand down to press against the top edge of Jonghyun’s sweatpants and undoes the tie with one hand.

“Oh,” Jonghyun’s heart skids, and his hips rock up all at once, the arch of his body pressing him in totality against Minhyun. He can feel how hard Minhyun is above him.

“Can,” Minhyun says, and he’s drawing his hand sideways, pulls his head up and flutters his eyes open. “Can I—?”

“Please,” Jonghyun gasps. He’s wrecked already, like the touch of Minhyun’s skin against his is enough to unravel every ounce of control he usually has and ever will have.

It’s just a shove of fabric to urge the sweatpants off Jonghyun’s hips, and then Minhyun can see all of him, golden skin and flushed cock and trembling thighs, and everything in his head shorts out for a moment, his hand caught at Jonghyun’s knee and the rumpled mess they’ve made of each other’s clothes, of the sheets. “Beautiful,” Minhyun whispers, a rush of tenderness muting the sharp edge of his desire. 

Minhyun sees Jonghyun’s abdominals flex before he registers that Jonghyun has sat up and is unzipping Minhyun’s jeans, fierce hunger in his eyes. “Don’t stop,” Jonghyun growls, in a way that is somewhere between a plea and an order. Minhyun hasn’t heard that tone of voice before, and all he can do is oblige, kicking off his own pants to the foot of the bed before this Jonghyun, shy and wanting and fierce, pulls him down by the back of his neck. He leans in as urged, landing between the heat of Jonghyun’s spread legs. It’s too much for a moment, the suggestion of this position and the dizzy heat flooding his brain, and he wants to be slow and he wants to take time but reflex wins out over restraint and he grinds his cock hard against Jonghyun’s thigh. “ _God,_ ” they breathe at the same time.

Jonghyun twitches hard against Minhyun’s stomach, and then takes them both in hand, closing his fingers around Minhyun’s length and his own. Minhyun can’t get enough air into his lungs and he can’t remember where he is. All he can do is gasp against Jonghyun’s mouth and capture Jonghyun’s tremors into himself as they pass desperate pleas of _don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop_  back and forth. 

Minhyun takes it all in. He won’t look away from the part of Jonghyun’s lips on the rush of his exhales, the blown-wide dark of his eyes, the crescent flush high on his cheekbones. That the wish harbored for so long inside could be finally made real before him—that this primordial urge could undo them both, that they could go to a place darker than dark through a white heat hotter than the sun, that the entire universe could be distilled to Jonghyun’s ragged breaths, that Minhyun would call out Jonghyun’s name, praying that Jonghyun will understand—

So this too, is love.

  
#

  
“It’s strange,” Jonghyun says after, as they wait for the shower to warm up, “how this doesn’t feel strange at all.”

“Oh?” Minhyun worms a finger into Jonghyun’s navel, and Jonghyun spins around to pinch Minhyun’s nose in retribution. “Well,” honks Minhyun, congested, “we’ve been in much stickier situations before.”

“That is a lie,” Jonghyun says, and parts the shower curtain so they can both step into the spray.

  
#

  
The sky is dark when their cab pulls up to the apartment foyer. Their hair is still wet from their shower and will dry flat on their heads; they didn’t have time to style before heading out. They climb into the back seat and Minhyun leans forward to show the address to the driver.

“Minki is gonna kill us,” Jonghyun moans quietly. “We were supposed to be there two hours ago.”

Minhyun texts the group chat that they’ll be there in twenty minutes, and with a deviant sort of carelessness, punctuates his message with enough heart emojis of pink, red, blue, yellow, and black varieties to last them all a lifetime.

There is no traffic down the main artery at this hour, so they may actually arrive earlier than expected. Jonghyun’s fingers drift over to the middle of the seat, light so they don’t squeak against the leather. Minhyun’s hand comes to meet Jonghyun’s in the middle, his fingertips tapping lightly against Jonghyun’s knuckles. 

“It feels like you were always meant to leave—if only for a little while.” Jonghyun turns his hand up to take Minhyun’s. He speaks sotto voce, so it won’t be heard over the drone of the engine. “Like you were meant to fly.”

“I think I understand what you mean.” Minhyun leans his head against the headrest as they come to a stop at a red light. “There are some things in this world that can be changed and some that can’t. And maybe time passing is the only thing that can be guaranteed. Come this far and everything that will happen, will happen. Like that?”

Jonghyun nods, and then looks at their intertwined hands for a long time, high on endorphins and oxycontin and for once feeling that he couldn’t care less what other people think. That’s part of the _what will happen, will happen_  too. Jonghyun feels a stupid smile spread across his face the longer he looks, but he doesn’t care. Not with the way Minhyun is looking at him: a glow in his eyes, lips parted like he wants to kiss Jonghyun again.

The signal changes to green, and their car begins to move again. The street lights strobe over Minhyun’s face, cinematic. Jonghyun clears his throat and looks away, suddenly shy. “Sometimes,” he says quietly, “I think about life after Nu’est. What we might do after this group, if there were an after. What I’ll be doing someday, what kind of house I’ll live in, who I’ll be with.”

Minhyun lets that _someday_  bloom as happiness through his entire body, words beyond him to frame the delight he feels other than the helpless smile he offers to Jonghyun, other than to stare at him like he’s never seen him before.

Jonghyun leans his head on Minhyun’s shoulder before he can act on temptation. “Stop looking at me like that,” he mumbles.

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t know everything already.”

“Well, I don’t—” Minhyun says, trying not to laugh, but mouth still curving on happiness that Jonghyun can feel running through his veins under the solidity of Minhyun’s shoulder, his hand cradled in Minhyun’s between their thighs, “know about what kind of house you want to live in.”

Jonghyun turns his head so his words will come against Minhyun’s ear. In his sigh floats a wisp of cirrus that Minhyun closes his eyes to and rides into the darkness.

“It’s a house on a hill,” Jonghyun says. “Out in the country, where there aren’t too many people. Somewhere you have to drive for a while to get to. With a view of the sea.”

_Where there would be Minhyun curled up in bed, bedside lamp casting a soft glow on his angular features, the sound of the page turning every two minutes. Fingers threading through Jonghyun’s hair, touch light on Jonghyun’s forehead. Where Jonghyun would drift off to the sound of those turning pages, to the sound of Minhyun reading to himself. To the air passing through Minhyun’s lips in invisible whispers and to the sound of the waves._

Minhyun aches. He grips Jonghyun’s hand like a lifeline. This _something, someday_  will anchor him, remind him, keep him from floating away, bring him back to to solid ground.

The car slows as they pull up to the restaurant. “But for now,” Jonghyun says, “dinner.”

“And then?” Minhyun knows they need to go. He just doesn’t want to let go yet.

Not yet.

“And then,” Jonghyun says, “we’ll see each other soon.”

 

 

 

  
  
  
  
  
_fin_

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note**
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> Thank you for reading the last chapter and for sticking with this story and series this whole way. It's been one year since Double Blind was published—and over a year since Scientific Methods was started. I can't believe this moment has finally come, and to be honest, I was a bit torn about hitting "Post" on this last chapter! It's not the first time that I've felt strange parallels between writing and reality. (Those who are seasoned with writing RPF must experience this all the time).
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> Massive thanks are in order... 
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> This is the first time I can say that I have finished a novel-length story, and it's thanks to Perkybird (@jjjear) who was with me every step of the way. She helped me form the story from a shapeless lump of an idea and turn it into something real, bringing the quality of each chapter up with each round of critique. Each time a draft passed through her hands it would emerge 10x better. Thank you Perkybird for making this series good! And thank you thank you thank you to Lillith Evans who also provided me (me and Perkybird, I should say) with deep encouragement and feedback, who got me started on writing for P101, Wanna One, and Nu'est in the first place, and whose enthusiasm and support made it possible for me to continue whenever I felt down or got stuck. Last but not least, thank you all. Each time I felt blocked I'd go back and read the comments and get energy to continue. Everyone who contributed their time and comments, I am enormously grateful! 
> 
> It's been such a journey watching all the boys graduate from Produce 101 and follow their careers over the last year and a half. I look forward to seeing what this new year will bring, don't you? 
> 
> Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you—be well, healthy, and happy in 2019.
> 
> **radishface**  
>  12/25/2018


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